I recently backed up my computer and moved my entire Music folder to an external HD. Before I did that, I decided to do some spring cleaning. A large percentage (about 2500 songs) of my library was in a certain folder on my computer, it was a catchall place for all songs that I'd acquired. That folder had been in the same place the last 5 years. Before I decided to scrub my computer, I decided that there was really no need for this "catchall" folder anymore, so I went through and cleaned up the contents of it, and then dumped all of the files in with the rest of my iTunes music in the iTunes Music Folder.
I used iTunes without issue for a few weeks after that, until I moved everything to my external HD in order to scrub my computer, in order to keep my iTunes Library files intact and not lose any song data or stats.
Now that I have come to put the entire Music folder back on my computer, suddenly the computer recognizes that the original folder is gone, and refuses to search for and find those 2500 songs (although they are now safe and sound in my iTunes Music folder).
I understand exactly what has caused the problem (that specific folder had been a "monitored" folder in my iTunes library), my question is, what
the easiest way to solve it? If I wanted to save 5 years worth of playlist data (which would be ideal, I've got a lot of stuff in there), I could painstakingly go back in and locate each of these 2500 songs, however, is there an easier way? My last Time Machine backup was 6 months ago, and that would restore the folder and it's contents to their original state, but then I would have duplicates of every song except for the ones acquired within the last 6 months.
Pulling the files from my iPod is out of the question, because I would lose all of the filenames. I am not up for renaming 7000 files! lol
Has anyone ever had this happen to them before on a large scale, too large to manually go in and reconnect each song? What can I do?
EDIT: I fixed the problem! Part of the issue was that the iTunes Preferences were set to look for files in the iTunes Media folder, NOT the Parent iTunes folder. As soon as I specified the iTunes folder instead, the library updated itself and fixed all of it's broken links. My night has been made
I used iTunes without issue for a few weeks after that, until I moved everything to my external HD in order to scrub my computer, in order to keep my iTunes Library files intact and not lose any song data or stats.
Now that I have come to put the entire Music folder back on my computer, suddenly the computer recognizes that the original folder is gone, and refuses to search for and find those 2500 songs (although they are now safe and sound in my iTunes Music folder).
I understand exactly what has caused the problem (that specific folder had been a "monitored" folder in my iTunes library), my question is, what
the easiest way to solve it? If I wanted to save 5 years worth of playlist data (which would be ideal, I've got a lot of stuff in there), I could painstakingly go back in and locate each of these 2500 songs, however, is there an easier way? My last Time Machine backup was 6 months ago, and that would restore the folder and it's contents to their original state, but then I would have duplicates of every song except for the ones acquired within the last 6 months.
Pulling the files from my iPod is out of the question, because I would lose all of the filenames. I am not up for renaming 7000 files! lol
Has anyone ever had this happen to them before on a large scale, too large to manually go in and reconnect each song? What can I do?
EDIT: I fixed the problem! Part of the issue was that the iTunes Preferences were set to look for files in the iTunes Media folder, NOT the Parent iTunes folder. As soon as I specified the iTunes folder instead, the library updated itself and fixed all of it's broken links. My night has been made
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