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I want to get my Playcount back!

Sorry for the cryptic topic... My wife's family was over for XMas, and her brother was looking over my music in iTunes and decided to make his own playlist. No problem, except that when he was done he cleared THE ENTIRE LIBRARY instead of just his list. #@$&@#^!!! iTunes was what got me to switch in the first place, and I have been keeping track of my listening habits for over a year now. I have done many searches on this, and cannot find the answer. I really want to get the PlayCount back.

1. The song files are still there, and I have managed to import them back into iTunes (dragged the Music folder onto iTunes)

2. I deleted (actually moved) the "iTunes Music Library.xml", "iTunes 4 Music Library", "com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist" and "com.apple.iTunes.plist" files per one post I saw, and then logged out and back in. iTunes did indeed recreate the files, but the playcount has all been reset. I also tried copying those files back after this.

3. I do not have an iPod.

Where does Apple/iTunes store the Playcount info? I have backups of every file in iTunes, but I cannot seem to do this. Has anyone done this?

Thanks, and my playcount thanks you.

The playcount, ratings, and last played date are all stored in the iTunes Library file, I think. If replacing the fubared one with an older one doesn't fix it, I don't think there's anything you can do.

The iTunes Music Library.xml file does contain the play count. However, when I change mine manually, it gets changed back the next time I launch iTunes, so it must also be stored somewhere else.

I suspect that it is probably contained in the binary iTunes 4 Music Library file. However, you would have to figure out the binary format in order to change it. Fortunately, this shouldn't be too difficult to do - all you would need to do would be this:

1. Make a backup of the file.

2. Open iTunes, listen to one of your music files, and quit.

3. Compare the file to the backup you made. If one byte has increased by 1, and its hexadecimal value is equal to the current play count, you should be able to edit that byte and set it to the correct play count.

HTH,
Charles

Ok I had some success with this. I found where the Playcount is stored. If anyone is interested:

1. Open Property List Editor
2. Load up "iTunes Music Library.xml"
3. Expand Root, Tracks (will take some time) and then you will see all the stats on each song


Great, except I just realized that the backup I have of this file is from AFTER my brother-in-law cleared the entire list, so the backup is useless.

Are there are third party tools to manually manipulate the Playcount in iTunes?

Well, can't you do it with plist editor?

Oh and for future reference, fast user switching (or just multiple accounts) with limited account privileges is PERFECT for what you're doing.

Basically, create a new account, and then do 'chmod -R 755 Music' on your music directory. Then go to the new user, and select "add songs to library" (make sure you DESELECT "let iTunes organize my files), and grab the files from your music directory.

Then they can add/delete songs to their heart's content. They won't be able to write/modify ANYTHING related to your song count.

Next time I will definately use a separate account, and definately wish I had done that before. Thanks for the help.

As for using plist, I could certainly go in an modify the playcount, but for over 3500 songs that would really be an effort. Even if there was a find and replace method for property list editor, I have different playcounts for every song.

I guess my year and a half of listening history is gone.

yeah if someone i don't trust entirely is going near my iBook to fiddle with iTunes I open up the guest user account with fast user switching (remembering to quit iTunes first).

I set the guest account to only have read privileges on my music folder and that prevents any mishaps like the one you had.