Accidentally erased all my songs on iTunes?!?

G50 · 12-06-2010, 07:44 AM

I was trying to "clean up" my laptop by getting rid of a bunch of unused programs which were just taking up space.

I'm sure I didn't delete the iTunes program! But maybe some program that iTunes needs or uses? Not sure.

Anyways, I went to open iTunes on my computer, and iTunes is still there, but all the songs are gone.

Is there any way to get them back? Can I reload them from my iPod, back to my computer? Anything?

crustychief · crustychief's Garage

The naming convention for Itunes is a little tricky. you probably deleted folders that had names like a21 a22 and such. those were your songs. You can reload them from an Ipod but you have to be careful not to let Itunes sync or it may clear your Ipod as well. I have mine set as an external storage device and can move songs and files back and forth like that.

Zeke · 12-06-2010, 07:53 AM

Someone else will chime in here and tell you where they are. I "restored" my hard drive and erased my songs. They were saved elsewhere. Fear not.

Gogar · 12-06-2010, 07:55 AM

Mac or PC?

On a Mac, your music is here:

Users/
(You)/
Itunes/
Itunes Music

If that folder is empty or not there, then you did erase it, but look in the trash first.

If the music it there but not in your iTunes then you could do "add to library" and then select everything in that folder and it will rebuild it for you.

daepp · 12-06-2010, 08:28 AM

Whatever you do, don't synch your ipod. All of your music should still be on your ipod and you will need to transfer it back to itunes using something like CopyTrans.

TechnoViking · TechnoViking's Garage

I would install Itunes on a new machine and then very carefully synch the ipod with the new install to get all the music on a hard drive. Then you can mess around with restoring the old one.

And don't install any new programs or large files on the old machine until you find where those files are. You don't want to overwrite them.

daepp · 12-06-2010, 08:54 AM

I could be wrong, but if you synch your ipod full of music to an empty itunes, the synch will erase the ipod rather than transfer the ipod's contents to itunes.

RANDY P · RANDY P's Garage

Wipe out itunes, then a fresh install then get copytrans.

google copytrans, spend the $20 for the backup software, it will save yer azz.

rjp

Neilk · 12-06-2010, 11:01 AM

E-mail Apple support and they will let you re-download all your purchased songs. You could also do a search for *.mp3 and see if they are still on your hard drive. I had an early version of CopyPod that would copy all the songs off your iPod back to your PC. The new version is no longer shareware

daepp · 12-06-2010, 12:10 PM

I will tell you that the $30 for CopyTrans was well worth it. I had to use it when my itunes software on my pc dies but my ipod was fine. And I had thousands of songs that I had legally uploaded from my CD collection.

gr8fl4porsche · gr8fl4porsche's Garage

This seems like a good time to remind everyone to back-up your info. You never know when a mistake or bad drive is going to ruin your day.

Large drives are super cheap these days.

Picked up a 1.5T for $ 52.99 delivered to my door on Newegg the other week.

G50 · 12-07-2010, 04:20 PM

Thanks all.

This is like in the movies, when they are dismantling a bomb. I feel like one false step and everything will be lost forever! (At least the songs currently are on my iPods).

I'm going to try CopyTrans. Wish me luck!

Hugh R · 12-07-2010, 05:21 PM

I use Carbonite to back up my P/C. It backs up iTunes as well. Good luck.

daepp · 12-08-2010, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G50

Thanks all.

This is like in the movies, when they are dismantling a bomb. I feel like one false step and everything will be lost forever! (At least the songs currently are on my iPods).

I'm going to try CopyTrans. Wish me luck!

CopyTrans is very easy to use - very self intuitive. The only problem I had is I wished I had started with an empty itunes. But when mine dies it still held about 600 songs, so when the ipod copied back on to the pc I had 600 duplicates. Not the end of the world but just FYI.

JavaBrewer · JavaBrewer's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gogar

Mac or PC?

On a Mac, your music is here:

Users/
(You)/
Itunes/
Itunes Music

If that folder is empty or not there, then you did erase it, but look in the trash first.

If the music it there but not in your iTunes then you could do "add to library" and then select everything in that folder and it will rebuild it for you.

+1 - is this laptop Apple or PC?

Have you done a hard drive search for mp3/m4a/m4p files? If they are not found then yes you deleted your music library and perhaps CopyTrans can "restore" the music to your laptop from your iPod. However if you find your music then just launch iTunes and point it to your music collection.

G50 · 12-08-2010, 08:51 PM

All's well that ends well.

I did every search, etc. on my hard drive, looked everywhere, could not find the songs. I think I did delete them. (This on a PC, not Mac).

I ended up deleting iTunes completely off my computer, reinstalling the newest version, getting CopyTrans and transferring all the songs from my iPod back to my computer.

As David says above, the CopyTrans program was intuitive and easy to use (if *I* found it easy, it must be really easy!). Worked great, got everything up and going and it's working better than ever.

Thanks to all for the advice! It was very helpful and much appreciated.