Lost his iTunes playlists, and wants them back.

May 29, 2009 12:56 PM

Friend Shane moved iTunes to an external hard drive, and he seems to have lost his library--he can re-import the songs, but the library in which his play counts, etc., were stored seems to have vanished. Help getting this info back?

Here's what he says. "So I moved all my iTunes stuff to the external hard drive, double checked to make sure it was there and worked and everything, then deleted all the music from the computer itself. And it worked! The annoying thing is that it appears I lost all my statistics. My playlists are empty (they are there, just empty). My ratings are gone. And the play counts are all empty now. Every single thing that was in the iTunes folder on my computer was moved to the external drive. If you try to sync the iPod, it basically tells you it's a whole different iTunes and it will erase everything on your iPod and replace it."

What did you move, Friend Shane? "Whatever was in the 'My Music' folder. So I guess it was the songs and my library, along with something called 'iTunes Library Extras' and I guess that is it."

Can you help Friend Shane?

posted by goatdog to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I believe all this information is stored in a file called itunes music library.xml. This Apple support article explains where this file lives. I'd see if he moved this file, and if so, he might need to make iTunes aware of its new location. This thread or this Lifehacker article might have some more information.
posted by txsebastien at 1:53 PM on May 29

I'm not 100% sure about Windows, but on OSX, all of this is kept track of in the iTunes Music Library.xml. This file has an entry for each song, the path to it on disk, and all its metadata. If what he did was move the folder elsewhere and then change the preferences to use this location, it's possible itunes regenerated the xml and lost all this metadata. :( It's not really the correct way to migrate an itunes collection.
posted by cj_ at 1:57 PM on May 29

(To clarify, lifting the folder and moving it elsewhere, you need to search/replace the filepaths within the XML file to point to the new location)
posted by cj_ at 1:58 PM on May 29

Do a search on his original hard drive for that "iTunes Music Library.xml" file.

Is it gone? If not, it is likely a "new" one with no old data.

Does he have a copy of that file (the old one) on his external hard drive? If so, copy that "old" file and replace it over the "new" one that was re-created in My Music. Your MP3's can live anywhere, but that xml file wants to live on your C:/ drive in My Music -> iTunes folder.
posted by yeti at 2:03 PM on May 29

If he moved the whole folder, the iTunes library XML is still on the external. I'm guessing when he started iTunes - the library was missing so it recreated the library file in the My Music folder. Make sure he does *not* delete the iTunes library file on the external as that probably contains all the data he is missing.

If he wants the data back, he will somehow have to merge the two files or...

An easier way would be to move everything back to as it was, and change the iTunes music folder location to point to the external. Hit File->Library consolidate library and it should copy everything over to the external. If everything is okay, delete the iTunes Music folder (not the iTunes folder)
posted by wongcorgi at 2:27 PM on May 29

I've gone through this.
Provided he finds the XML file (I'm guessing it's on the external) the file paths inside the library will still point to the original file locations, on the internal hard drive. What you have to do is very carefully (after making a backup of the file) opening up Textedit (Or Notepad, as it may be) and replacing strings thusly (replace for what they really are)

file://localhost/Users/ShaneMusic/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/
with

file://localhost/Users/Shane/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/

or, in the case of Windows:

file://localhost/C:/Users/Shane/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/
with

file://localhost/C:/Users/Shane/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/

As mentioned, be sure you have a backup because you might have to mess around a bit before the replaced strings line up with where the files actually are. Keep also in mind that opening the file as well as running the full search/replace can take eons.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:43 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]

Damnit. I meant:

replace the first example with:

file://localhost/Volumes/External%20HD/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/

and the second with:
file://localhost/E:/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/
posted by dunkadunc at 2:46 PM on May 29