iTunes Match question

[JTreehorn]

I am wondering: How does iTunes Match handle songs in your library that have become disconnected from their files (songs with exclamation points)?

Previously I was not an iTunes Match subscriber, and I had a large music library stored on an external hard drive. I also stored a portion of these songs on my iPhone and iPad. My external hard drive crashed. I was able to recover the songs I had stored on my iPhone and iPad, and I have since subscribed to iTunes Match. However, I still have the iTunes library file from my original library. All of the songs I once had on the external hard drive appear in iTunes when I use the old library file, however with exclamation points.

If I were to erase my current match account and connect it to this older library, would it load these songs to the cloud even though I am missing their files? If there were the case, I could load the missing songs to the cloud and then redownload the songs into iTunes.

Is this a way to replace my missing music?

I would really appreciate any feedback, thank you.

 

[Rigby]

If I were to erase my current match account and connect it to this older library, would it load these songs to the cloud even though I am missing their files?

No, you'll need the actual audio file. If Match did allow downloads based only on the metadata in the library file, people could easily download any music they want for free, because it is trivial to edit the library XML ...

 

[JTreehorn]

Thanks for the response, I didn't consider that iTunes is just referencing an XML file.

 

[cliffster82]

I have a similar issue to this. I deleted a whole bunch of music from my work laptop to free up space, thinking like an idiot that iTunes Match would keep all the files ready and waiting for me in the cloud. It's been a few days and while browsing my library I noticed some things missing. Uh oh. Yes, they're gone from iTunes Match/Apple Music/whatever. Anyone have advice? I think my only hope is the music I have stored on my home computer. Again, I'm an idiot for not backing up the music files first, but why didn't iTunes Match save my music!?