[rsilber]

My wife stores potential iTunes purchases by dragging them to a playlist. From there she will purchase when ready. Yes, I know the shopping cart is for this, but a year or so ago Apple's server lost our shopping cart, hence the playlist. Unfortunately she accidently deleted the playlist. How do I recover it???

As a safeguard, I had backed up the playlist as an xml file, but when I brought that back in through Import, it was empty. iTunes help states the playlists only come back for what is actually in my library. I've attempted to use Time Machine to go back in time and restore the library, but this didn't work either.

Am I missing something, or trying to chase a rabbit that won't be caught???

Thanks all...
Robert

[mdawson]

The only thing I can think of that may possibly work would be to backup your iTunes Library file on a regular basis in the event that such a mishap occurs again. That data file is located in ~/Music/iTunes and it stores the structure of your iTunes library. At this point though, you are probably beating a dead horse if you cannot retrieve the playlist contents from the exported XML or via Time Machine. iTunes was not designed to retain wish lists and as a media database, aptly freaks when linked to nonexistent tracks.
You are perhaps better off creating a wish list in Excel or some other software than attempting to do so in iTunes. I currently retain my wish list as an Excel workbook. Given you recent run of bad luck, it may behoove you and your wife to keep the wish list in multiple formats (e.g., online cart and external document) or just as a document that you backup.

[memyselfandi]

Or iy you don't have excell, just use shopping cart and teach her how to make screen shots of it.

or if your in shopping cart, just touch the songs, do a select all, copy n' paste in a text edit window and save as a file for reference.

[HarryBrindley]

Trying to recover the playlist information , not the actual song files? You can recover deleted playlists from your iPod using On-The-Go playlists. Go to http://slapphappe.wo...itunes-playlist for step-by-step instructions on how to use your iPod's On-The-Go playlists to recover deleted playlists without any utilities. Tested on Mac, should work for Windows too.

While working in a playlist you can have two different things selected ? the playlist name and one or more songs in that playlist. So which will it trash when you hit the delete key? The selected songs or the whole playlist? It depends on which of the two was most recently selected and, therefore, the darkest of the two different selections.

slapphappe.com