You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: redmoonbeam72
redmoonbeam72 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

files missing

I have all my music files stored on an external hard drive (about 100 GB). This was connected to my MacBook Pro and I was listening to this music library on the Music app.


At some point this stopped playing and the song files in the Music app had an exclamation next to them as in missing location. I looked on Finder and the external hard drive was still mounted and whilst the Folders and Folder structure was still all there the audio files were all missing with the album folders appearing empty.


Doing Get Info on the top level folder appeared to show the size of the folder and data still being correct. Also if I did a spotlight search for a song then the mp3 file appeared when searching for it it and I could still play the audio file. Yet I couldn't see the files in Finder and iTunes/Music app couldn't locate the files. This seem to happen suddenly and the external hard drive has been fine before. Other files on the external hard drive in a top level different folder (i.e. images) I can still view so it appears to be just be my music library.


Any suggestions on how to get them to appear in Finder and Music again? The external hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Apr 15, 2023 3:36 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,470 points

Posted on Apr 16, 2023 5:12 AM

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, (see the iTunes Media Organization section of Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for details) or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

View in context

Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,470 points

Apr 16, 2023 5:12 AM in response to redmoonbeam72

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, (see the iTunes Media Organization section of Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for details) or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

Reply

files missing

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up