Fixing a Broken iTunes Library

It's not just a music player: iTunes indexes all of your music files and organizes them into playlists, sorts by artist, album, and genre, as well as tracking which files to sync with your iThingy. Sometimes, this index file becomes corrupted or damaged, so iTunes doesn't know anything about your music files, even though they are still available on your hard disk. If this happens to you, don't despair: you can rebuild your iTunes library following these steps:
  1. Open iTunes. In iTunes Preferences, go to the Advanced tab (the gear icon)
  2. Click [Select...] to set the location for your new iTunes library. 
  3. Important: Check Keep iTunes media folder organized.
  4. In iTunes, select File > Add to Library.
  5. Select the folder that contains all your music files (your old iTunes folder)
  6. Click [Open]
  7. Wait. This should take some time, depending on the size of your music collection.
You can also use these steps to move your iTunes library from one location to another, while re-indexing your entire library. This is especially useful if your music files may be scattered all over your computer and you want to consolidate them in one place, say on a new external hard drive.

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