iTunes library mostly disappeared

Tancamb Said:

"Tunes library mostly disappeared: The migration assistant link takes me to PC - Mac instructions.: I tried to get back what was there yesterday from Time Machine, but I still am missing thousands of songs. My personal property."

Three Thoughts:

• Other Locations:

Look in other locations (i.e. USB Flash Drive). If they are not missing then Rey reinstalling the macOS.

• Boot into Safe Mode:

Hold Down the Shift Key upon boot. Once at the login screen, release shift. See if it all now works. In Safe Mode, only necessary items load (i.e. the caches), and new preferences are set aside.

If neither of the above works...

• Reinstall the macOS:

Reinstalling the macOS will place moved items back to where they should be, and will replace damaged system files.

1. First, Back up your Mac:

Create a Time Machine backup of your Mac, so that you can have something to restore your Mac from, should anything go wrong with the reinstall. Use an external Hard Drive of at least 1.5 times the size of your internal hard drive.

2. Then, Reinstall the macOS:

Nothing would be deleted. It's just that items that have become corrupted or deleted, would be replaced or reinstalled back to where they should be. Go Here: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Tancamb Said:

"Tunes library mostly disappeared: I don't have an iPhone but had looked for that on iPad and there is no iCloud Music Library. Just "downloaded music". I used to be able to play my whole iTunes library from iPad to bluetooth speaker."

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Some Other Thoughts on Recovering These:

• Try iCloud Resync:

Sign out of iCloud, and then sign back in. It might take a bit for them to show up, but eventually they will, if they were associated to iCloud.

• Recover these from a Time Machine Backup:

Are these on the backup? If so, then restore your iPhone from the backup. You would start by creating a Time Machine backup of your Mac today, so that you can have something to restore your Mac and its items from, should anything go wrong, such as the loss of files (i.e. music).

• Recover these from a Music Library Backup:

Go Here: Back up and restore your iTunes library on your PC - Apple Support Note that you might need to upgrade your iCloud storage plan if not enough space resides for a Backup. Go Here: Cloud storage plans and pricing - Apple Support

• As for a Time Limit of Sorts...

If there is any sort of time limit issue, Time Machine Backups will overwrite one another once not enough space is resides. So, if you need to recover these, look for them in the most likely Time Machine Backup that would have these.

Tancamb wrote:

Tried signing out of iCloud but it never finishes updating before it can sign out.

I don't have an iPhone but I have tried to restore the library.xml from Time Machine. It just disappears from the itunes folder as soon as it arrives.

The key component of the iTunes library is the iTunes Library.itl file. The XML file is used by third party apps to access the content of the library when iTunes isn't running. You can take your computer offline, restore a recent version of the iTunes Library.itl from before any corruption of the library, launch iTunes and then turn off Sync Library AKA iCloud Music Library. This should give you back your locally stored music and playlists.

tt2

Tancamb Said:

"Tunes library mostly disappeared: I had all my music in iTunes on my computer, only.. Thousands of songs in many personalized playlists, some purchased from iTunes and some uploaded from personal cd's.[...]The only back up of all this music is in Time Machine."

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Restore from the Backup:

Restore the music from the TMB using Migration Assistant.

Tancamb wrote:

(Still looking for the Sync preference...)

If the library is back. as you expect it and you're online then probably it is all good. The danger when you have iCloud Music Library as part of either Apple Music or iTunes Match is that you restore a working copy of the library, and then it immediately gets overwritten by a bad version from the cloud where content has been removed. Reading again your first post it seems you no longer have a subscription, so that isn't a problem, but for the benefit of anyone else reading the thread later this article show how to Turn on Sync Library with Apple Music - Apple Support, and thus also how to turn it off.

tt2

Tancamb Said:

"Tunes library mostly disappeared: There are no other locations. Booting into safe mode didn't help. I was going to finally upgrade my O/S from High Sierra. Should I reinstall it first and then upgrade?"

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Reinstall First:

Yes. Attempt a reinstall first. Do not upgrade, if you still want to retrieve the files.

Have an iPhone?:

See if you can find these on your iPhone. Use iCloud, to see if they popup.

Enable Music in iCloud to sync it All::

1. Go to: Settings
2. Tap: Music
3. Tap: iCloud Music Library so that it is green-in-color

Tancamb Said:

"Tunes library mostly disappeared: Thanks for the fix! Everything did come back after restoring .itl file - thank goodness! (I kept restoring the wrong one!) (Still looking for the Sync preference...)"

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Consider a Backup:

You are welcome. Having reinstalled it, you may want to backup you Mac, with other issues possibly having been fixed.

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