I have (had) a folder on a 3TB external usb Drive that contained 530 gb of music that was my itunes music library and 529.3 GB for 0 Items says finder??!!. Yes finder tells me there are zero items in my music folder that take up 529.3 GB of space??!!. My backup folder of music on another external drive says that too??!! ODD very odd. But there are (were) about 70,000 songs in there. Never mind how I got some (most) of them. But now they are being randomly deleted by something. Some are there some aren't. My first thought was Itunes but the songs are still referenced in there, but they have been deleted and are no longer showing up in finder. I'm wondering now if finder or macosx has deleted them? What is deleting them and how do I stop it?? With this kind of software malfunction windows is starting to look really attractive. Should I avoid using that POS itunes ever again? If so what is a good free alternative?
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Music files gone :(
- Thread starter macmanmatty
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This is why I've -NEVER- used iTunes to store/manage my music.
I keep it all -- 130gb worth -- on a separate volume, in a folder/file hierarchy that I created myself.
No cloud interactions whatsoever. (I don't use "the cloud" at all).
Was this linked to "a cloud account" of some kind, such as iCloud?
What kind of backup do you use?
In the future, I'd recommend creating "cloned backups" using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
I'd disconnect the drive for now.
You might try data recovery software on it.
I'd recommend "DataRescue" from ProSoft.
One used to be able to download and try it "for free".
I keep it all -- 130gb worth -- on a separate volume, in a folder/file hierarchy that I created myself.
No cloud interactions whatsoever. (I don't use "the cloud" at all).
Was this linked to "a cloud account" of some kind, such as iCloud?
What kind of backup do you use?
In the future, I'd recommend creating "cloned backups" using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
I'd disconnect the drive for now.
You might try data recovery software on it.
I'd recommend "DataRescue" from ProSoft.
One used to be able to download and try it "for free".
I have a back up of my songs on another external drive and 99.99% of my files are there. No problems there. I would just like to know if it was itunes deleting my songs or finder or osx or my external drive going bad. Nothing else was touched and some (not all) of the files have reappeared oddly? What do use to manage your music then if that pos itunes (which I have now deleted) ? I tried clementine but the UI was very buggy and the list of songs could never stay aligned. But it did play flac files.
OP asked:
"What do use to manage your music then if that pos itunes"
I don't use ANY app to do the "managing".
I do it myself.
If I want to play music, I usually just open an app like "Cog", navigate to the folder in which the files I want to play are in, and just "drag and drop" them into Cog. When I'm done playing them, I delete them from Cog's playlist.
But again, because the music files are located in "a hierarchy of my own creation", they are never moved or messed with.
Same for photo management.
I permit NO application to manage my photos.
I manage them myself, in the same way, through a folder/file structure of my own creation.
"What do use to manage your music then if that pos itunes"
I don't use ANY app to do the "managing".
I do it myself.
If I want to play music, I usually just open an app like "Cog", navigate to the folder in which the files I want to play are in, and just "drag and drop" them into Cog. When I'm done playing them, I delete them from Cog's playlist.
But again, because the music files are located in "a hierarchy of my own creation", they are never moved or messed with.
Same for photo management.
I permit NO application to manage my photos.
I manage them myself, in the same way, through a folder/file structure of my own creation.