iPod My Music cannot be "located" - how to delete

kallioli said:

Hi, our music library has 70% of the files listed as "cannot locate". The files have been lost. Does anyone know about a quick way to sort the ones that cannot be located so we can simply delete them from the library?

Put another way, we want to delete all the files iTunes cannot "locate" and keep the rest.

Thanks!

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Let iTunes play through the library overnight so that it will find all the missing songs. Once it has done that sort by the column that contains the exclamation marks and delete with ease.

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I once had to do this. I just clicked on the first track in my library then (I kid you not) taped a pencil to the Down arrow key and let it select each track one by one. After an hour or so I had "touched" every track and got "!" where tracks were lost.

I think there might be a script at Doug's that'll do this for you though (I was running Windows when I used the pencil).

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Another way might be to delete EVERYTHING from your Library, then let iTunes gather & add all music on your computer into iTunes.

Might be easier if you're missing 70% of your library.

You're all wrong

Far easier solution:

Ctrl A - to select all
Delete - to delete all
Are you sure you want to delete? Click Yes.

iTunes will then prepare all songs for deletion, after which you can choose whether you want to Cancel, Move to Recycling Bin, or just delete from Library.

Click 'Cancel'.

Takes 10s, and none of your songs will be deleted - but the songs that could not be located will all be displayed.