Although Time Machine is one of the big selling points of Leopard, like all backup software it is not something that most users ideally want to have to use very often. To some extent this is a shame, because Time Machine is designed to be very visually appealing, with the swirling blackhole effects that appear whenever it is invoked. In fact, it is so visually appealing that there is a real temptation to actually delete something on purpose – just so that you can use Time Machine to restore it. Of course, that might be just me.
Fortunately I will no longer need to take such drastic action, because today I actually deleted some items – by mistake – that aren’t easy to recover: iTunes playlists. In fact I deleted a whole series of them by hitting the delete key when I thought another application had focus. Now as far as I can tell, iTunes playlists, when deleted, more or less disappear into the ether. Certainly by the time I noticed what I’d done there was nothing under the Undo menu option, and there was nothing in the Trash either (that had seemed unlikely, I’ll admit).
Resisting the urge to panic, or to re-create the playlists, I turned instead to Time Machine. I closed iTunes, navigated to the iTunes folder, and then clicked on the Time Machine icon. Stepping back in time until the last time the iTunes Library file had been updated, I then clicked on Restore and replaced the latest version (having zipped up a copy first just in case). I then re-opened iTunes, crossed my fingers, and checked that all of the deleted playlists were present – which they were. It was only a simple test, but Time Machine worked exactly as it is supposed to. You can’t really ask for more than that.
Tags: itunes, leopard, macosx, playlists, time machine
6 November 2008 at 6:56 pm |
Thanks for posting this!!
12 November 2008 at 3:40 am |
Did you synch to an iPod? If so, you can recover deleted playlists from your iPod using On-The-Go playlists, without any utilities. Tested on Mac, should work for Windows too. Go my blog entry at http://slapphappe.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/how-to-recover-an-itunes-playlist for step-by-step instructions on how to use your iPod’s On-The-Go playlists to recover deleted playlists
7 January 2009 at 4:21 am |
Wow – that was my first test of Time Machine and what a life saver. I have playlists from my deployments overseas and I really enjoyed listening to that music from time and time and this helped me recover it. Thank you for making it so clear!
31 January 2009 at 3:48 am |
WOW- I just did exactly the same thing!!! I was so worried because i spent last night making lots of playlists for my trip i am going on. I also made playlists for genres, i almost cried when i couldn’t do anything to help. Thankyou so much for posting, it saved my life.
31 January 2009 at 9:51 pm |
Amazing. Worked perfectly for me today. Thought I was up a creek. Go Time Machine Go. Perfect instructions by the way.
18 May 2009 at 10:12 am |
My wife deleted the playlist she syncs her iPod to this morning. I didn’t have time to try this but it was going to be my first port of call. Good to know that it works.
Thanks for the post.
1 July 2009 at 2:34 pm |
this was the first time i had to use the TM and HELL YEA! everything is back to normal
thx for the hint…
2 July 2009 at 11:29 pm |
Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had the idea but didn’t dare because i read terrible things about copying itunes library files.
But it works!!!!
Only the last added files aren’t in your restored library, but they can be found easily on your harddrive
7 August 2009 at 10:01 pm |
Awesome post. Thank you very much. I deleted my playlists somehow and this tip worked perfectly. I thought I was going to have to start all over with my playlists. THANK YOU. Thank you time machine and Apple too!!
4 September 2009 at 4:30 am |
Thanks from another recipient of your hair-saving advice. I was about to pull all mine out when I accidentally deleted a painstakingly created smart playlist. 30 seconds later i’m back in business.
Thanks!
14 September 2009 at 7:18 pm |
You are my hero! why apple doesn’t allow itunes to be viewed in time machine like all the other apps i don’t know.
16 September 2009 at 2:50 am |
OMG THANK YOU SOO MUCH!!!
I was about to die without my favorite playlist!!