My iTunes was a rickety mess. I had links to songs that didn’t exist on my hard drive anymore, duplicates and a bunch of playlists that I didn’t need anymore. I wanted to start over. I could delete all of this data by individually selecting each item and deleting them, but that’s a pain. There is an easier way. Here’s what I did.
1. Close iTunes.
2. Open My Documents > My Music > iTunes.
3. Right-click iTunes Music Library.xml and select Rename. Give it a name of iTunes Music Library.old. Do the same thing for the iTunes Library.itl file.
4. Open iTunes. The library, playlist, ratings will then be cleared out. New iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library.itl files will be created.
5. You can now drag and drop your music files you want to get back to the main window of iTunes. The main folder for iTunes music is located at My Documents > My Music > iTunes > iTunes Music. It’s a good idea to organize your music files first before you re-add your music files back to iTunes to avoid duplicates and errant file names.
