Is iTunes really gone? Now your entire purchases and ripped music library and playlists will be in Music and your Movies and TV Shows libraries will be in TV. Update my Mac to Catalina. Specifically, once you enabled iCloud Music Library, Apple will scan your music and replace the songs with its own versions, and then upload anything it doesn't know to its servers. In this case, to get back the disappeared Apple Music playlists on iOS, the common way is to re-enable your iCloud Music Library so as to re-sync the lost songs from Apple Music with iTunes on a Mac or PC.
iTunes playlist disappeared after iTunes update or iOS upgrade? Read on this guide to easily fix the iTunes playlist gone error and restore iTunes playlists in 1 click.
“I updated iTunes this weekend. But all of the Playlists I’d created in my iTunes library have disappeared – that’s many playlists created over many years. I’ve had a look on some of the previous threads and questions/suggestions on the Support pages, but most of them seem quite complicated. Any help, I really don’t want to have to start recreating Playlists from scratch!”
— User from Apple Communities
If you have encountered the same situation like above user that your previous iTunes playlist disappeared after iTunes update, then don’t worry about that too much. We have workarounds and solutions for that. Here in the following, we will show you 2 ways to easily fix the iTunes playlists gone error and help you restore iTunes playlists in minutes.
Also Read: How to Recover iTunes Backup Password >
Method 1. Fix: iTunes Playlist Disappeared & Restore iTunes Playlists
Step 1. Quit iTunes > Open iTunes Music folder.
Mac user: Click on Go at the top-left of your computer screen > Home > Choose Music folder > Open iTunes folder.
Windows user: Click My Document > My Music > iTunes.
Step 2. Find the files named iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library > Drag them to a place that convenient for you.
Fix: iTunes Playlist Disappeared & Restore iTunes Playlists – Step 2
Step 3. Open iTunes > Click on File > Library > Import Playlist… > Choose the iTunes Music Library.xml you just saved.
iTunes Playlist Disappeared & Restore iTunes Playlists – Step 3
Method 2. Restore iTunes Playlists from iPhone/iPad/iPod in 1 Click
Since above traditional solution is quite gruelling and time-consuming, here we would like to share you another reliable yet efficient way – AnyTrans to do you a favor. Please make sure that you have synced all playlists to your iOS device before.
- It helps you restore all lost iTunes playlists with play counts and ratings.
- Unlike iTunes, it supports syncing playlists as well as other iOS files like photos, messages, contacts, notes, etc. from iPhone to iTunes/computer/iDevices, and vice versa. More than anything, it will not erase any existing data while syncing.
- It allows you to manage and backup iTunes library in 1 click.
- It enables you to have a full control of your iTunes and iCloud backup, such as viewing backups, deleting redundant backups, transferring backups to computer and creating new backups.
Step 1. Download AnyTrans on your Mac/PC and install it > Open it > Connect your device to the computer with USB cable > Choose Content to iTunes mode.
How to Restore iTunes Playlists from iPhone/iPad/iPod – Step 1
Step 2. Check Playlists only > Click on Right Arrow to start restoring iTunes Playlists now.
How to Restore iTunes Playlists from iPhone/iPad/iPod – Step 2
After the process is completed, you can click Manage iTunes Library Mode to check your restored iTunes playlists, manage your iTunes library, or backup iTunes library.
Check Restored iTunes Playlists on AnyTrans – Screen Overview
The Bottom Line
With above 2 methods, you may have fixed the iTunes playlists missing error and successfully restored iTunes playlists. At last, syncing your iPhone to iTunes and backing up your iPhone/iPad/iPod regularly in case you can easily restore iTunes data from your device one day.
Production Music Library
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If you, like me, had a three-month trial of Apple Music and did not renew it, or have cancelled your subscription to it, your iTunes Music library is possibly left in something of a mess.
One user claims that his trial of Apple Music has resulted in the loss of many tracks, and all sorts of other problems. To that, the iTunes guru at Macworld has asserted that cannot be the result of cancelling his subscription. So who is right?
Apple.music Library Gone
As usual, the truth probably rests somewhere between these two extremes. I have not seen any tracks deleted, nor my original home-ripped tracks lost, but at the same time Apple Music did not restore the status quo. So Apple does have some explaining and apologising to do, and needs to sort Apple Music out so that it does not interfere with our music libraries. But wholesale data loss is probably not one of its failings.
Missing tracks
Searching my iTunes Music library, there are a few tracks which seem to have gone missing. These are clearly marked with the exclamation mark icon in the first column, and their iCloud icon also contains an exclamation mark.
Try to play any of them, and you will see this alert, which implies that the original file for that track has gone walkies somewhere. With that track selected, press Command-I to view further information.
Then select the File tab, and you will see where iTunes is looking for the file. In this (and every other) case, it is on a volume which is offline, one of the four drives which were installed in a previous Mac Pro. So it is not iTunes or Apple Music which has lost that file – I have.
The solution here is simple: locate a copy of the file, put it back in your library, try to play the track again, and use the alert to hook iTunes up with that file.
iCloud Music Library
When you first subscribed to Apple Music, you agreed to use iCloud Music Library, or iTunes in the Cloud. Then, whenever you let iTunes have the chance, it was busy copying (not moving) tracks from your Mac into iCloud, to help that service to work. When you cancelled your Apple Music subscription, all such copying ceased, leaving some tracks in iCloud. These are distinguished by the iCloud icon assigned to them.
When you now try to play them, they should still work (unless the original file has gone missing, see above).
However, when you select a track and press Command-I, you are informed that they have “not yet been processed by iCloud Music Library”. This is because they were due to be, that processing was initiated, but terminated with your subscription. Do not fear: just click on the Yes button.
Youtube Music Library
The bottom two fields in the File tab now reveal what has happened: their iCloud status is “Waiting” (for Godot, presumably), but they still have a real location in your local iTunes Music library. If you don’t believe me, follow the path shown and you will see the track still there, intact, and the same as it was before this mess started.
What to do
Fix any real missing tracks, or remove them from the iTunes listing. So long as the tracks stuck waiting for iCloud work fine, you should be happy just leaving them like that; they are not apparently at risk, and if they did vanish, you have got good backups of your tracks and library. Haven’t you?
If you really get disturbed by those pesky little iCloud icons and have the time and effort to put things back properly (as iTunes should have done), you can remove the tracks from iTunes but without deleting the tracks themselves, then add them back from the files which are still there.
But my problems are worse, really
Apple has a lot of very useful help information on its support site. We all think that iTunes needs a good overhaul, but it really is not that bad, and is far from being unsupported.
If your content seems to have vanished from iTunes, or you believe that there are plenty of missing tracks, then you can revert to your previous iTunes Library, a process described well here. The snag is that you are not likely to have many previous library files: since I dabbled with Apple Music, there has only been one stored, and that was when my current problems were well established. The next previous library file was almost a year ago, before I tried Apple Music.
So that solution works best when you have just updated iTunes, and the new version is not working properly.
Another clear support article here steps you through replacing a track which has gone missing, such as that described in Missing Tracks above.
One other quick check which might make you feel a bit better is to compare the size of your current iTunes Music folder with one from your Time Machine backup prior to joining Apple Music, and even to check through some folders to see how they compare. You did keep a backup, didn’t you?
If your library is not vast and is now a real mess, consider removing all the tracks (but not their files) and rebuilding your library from scratch. When doing so, stop for a five minute break every hour, and curse iTunes vigorously: unsubscribing from Apple Music does leave a mess, and that is not acceptable, and Apple needs to fix it. But it is not the disaster that it may at first look like.
Footnote (added 0840):
For the sake of completeness, I should point out that the iCloud icon with the broken lines shown above indicates a track which is being transferred to iTunes in the Cloud, typically seen when you first subscribe to Apple Music, or when you have ceased subscribing. When a track is in the cloud, the icon has a continuous line. When you unsubscribe to Apple Music, those tracks should revert to your local copies, so long as their original files have not been removed.