iTunes deletes my movies!

[rdijkgraaf]

Over the last few months I lost several important movies. I imported them from my iPhone via Photo's to the desktop, from there I dragged them into iTunes Home Movies. They work fine for a few days, but after that (e.g. while syncing my iPad) I get the message 'This video cannot be played because the original couldn't be found, would you like to locate it?' The movies are solidly gone, never to be found again. Some I backed up, some are lost forever. Am I the only one experiencing this flaw? What could be the explanation? (iMac, El Capitan.)

 

[Alrescha]

Am I the only one experiencing this flaw? What could be the explanation? (iMac, El Capitan.)

I do not know, as I am as mystified as you are. I have been using iTunes for over a decade, and have always found its handling of my files to be extremely conservative, in that I have never had it delete anything that I did not tell it to delete.

Sure, it has lost track of files, and corrupted its own database from time to time, but its never just deleted anything.

You might want to look into other possibilities, as if iTunes purposely deleted the file it would have updated the database and you would not have seen a 'missing file' message.

A.

 

[rdijkgraaf]

The plot thickens: when I right-click a movie in iTunes and choose 'show in finder', it appears that the movies are not located in the folder Home Videos, but remain in the spot from where I dragged them into iTunes. I now understand that they disappear when I trash them from their original location.
So I dragged videos from the desktop into the appropriate iTunes finder window directly, but then they do not show up in the iTunes application. What next? Anyone?

 

[Alrescha]

So I dragged videos from the desktop into the appropriate iTunes finder window directly, but then they do not show up in the iTunes application. What next? Anyone?

It appears that you have turned off "Copy files to iTunes Library" in iTunes Advanced Preferences, so movies you add stay where they are.

For files which you have manually copied to an iTunes folder, you can use File/Add to Library to have iTunes add them to its database.

A.

 

[rdijkgraaf]

It appears that you have turned off "Copy files to iTunes Library" in iTunes Advanced Preferences, so movies you add stay where they are.

For files which you have manually copied to an iTunes folder, you can use File/Add to Library to have iTunes add them to its database.

A.

You are quite right, thank you very much! Checking 'copy files to library' did the trick. I am slightly embarrassed ...

 

[Alrescha]

You are quite right, thank you very much! Checking 'copy files to library' did the trick. I am slightly embarrassed ...

You are very welcome. And do not worry, we all have our moments...

A.

 

[CTHarrryH]

Don't be embarrassed this is what forums are for - helping others (OK also to complain about everything)