how do i recover my damaged itunes library?

Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
i was importing a CD to my itunes on my mac 10.3 (plus i know i dont have any sort of feature to let me restore to any particular date or time), and my computer froze on me completely. so i did what i always do, and had to power down with the button. this always takes care of the problem. last two times i did it, it repaired the itunes library as soon as i brought up itunes again. but this time it tells me that it changed that library to 'itunes damaged library 3'. the regular itunes now has no music or playlists whatsoever. i didnt do anything i dont normally, and it usually fixes it just fine. can anybody please help me?
 

Raz0rEdge

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
15,745
Reaction score
2,071
Points
113
Location
MA
Your Mac's Specs
2022 Mac Studio M1 Max, 2023 M2 MBA
Powering down the Mac with the power button is NOT a normal and good way of turning off he computer. Basically when you do that all open files and things that are kept in temporary places are not stored away properly. In most cases, as you've found out, the "corruption" is minimal enough for iTunes or any other application to recover from..but do it enough times and the corruption might start to compound and becomes hard enough to recover from that the application will fail..

Regards
 

RavingMac

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
8,303
Reaction score
242
Points
63
Location
In Denial
Your Mac's Specs
16Gb Mac Mini 2018, 15" MacBook Pro 2012 1 TB SSD
Your playlists etc are probably gone unless you have a backup to restore from, which I gather you don't.
But the good news is your music is probably still in your machine. In Finder look for the folders that represent the individual CD uploads (don't have my MBP in front of me to give you explicit directions on where) and then drag them into iTunes. Or, you can double click on songs and they will play and load into iTunes Library. Will take some time but you should be able to reload everything.
Before I did that I would double check that there isn't an iTunes Menu choice to search your HD for music files as this would be much quicker.
Hope this helps.
 
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
1,227
Reaction score
8
Points
38
Location
UK
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 2.66 GHz 20", iPad Mini2 32GB, iPhone6 64GB, Watch Sport 42mm Black, iPad Air 2 128GB
Look in /home/<your user name>/Music/iTunes/

With a bit of luck, your music files might still be there.

Good luck :)
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top