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Music playlists

My old MacBook Air died without warning. Although all my music files were backed up, I did not get to use the Export feature in order to transfer files to my new MacBook. I can get all the songs, but not the playlists that organize them. Surely there is something I can do - some file that I just need to put in the right place in the new computer's file structure in order to be able to get them back, or something? Like I have the .itl file from my old computer and everything, I just can't seem to make my new computer USE it. Any advice?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Aug 23, 2021 10:13 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 23, 2021 10:19 AM

Press and hold down option as you launch Music, select choose library, browse to and open the .itl file from your previous computer, choose a location to save the converted Music Library.musiclibrary file. If your music is in the same location as it was previously it should all just work. Otherwise read on...



The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2



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7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 23, 2021 10:19 AM in response to temporaryannoyance

Press and hold down option as you launch Music, select choose library, browse to and open the .itl file from your previous computer, choose a location to save the converted Music Library.musiclibrary file. If your music is in the same location as it was previously it should all just work. Otherwise read on...



The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2



Aug 23, 2021 11:11 AM in response to temporaryannoyance

See Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community for general background. Neither iTunes nor Music automatically eliminate tracks that cannot be found, so if you delete the underlying files you get broken links in the library. And any playlist memberships that were imported from the .itl files would be attached to the tracks with broken links rather than the new imports. Once you restored the media folder as it was before and converted the .itl file perhaps you can give me the three bits of information asked for at the end of my first post and I may be able to guide you best as to what to do next.


tt2

Aug 23, 2021 10:55 AM in response to turingtest2

Well I had already imported the songs prior to doing what you suggested. But then when I got the playlists back via your method, it said there were 334 songs it couldn't locate (even though they were there and in the same sorts of folders as all the rest of the ones it DID locate). So then I copied all the songs to the place where they would naturally go instead of the folder I had them in. That's what made them ALL have duplicates. And then I deleted them from where I used to have them, thinking that that would get rid of the duplicates, but it didn't, even though I emptied the trash bin and even though I quit and restarted Music. Maybe I should just delete everything and re-try your way from the stuff on my external backup drive...?

Music playlists

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