MacMost Q&A Forum • View All Forum QuestionsAsk a Question

Are iTunes files really deleted if deleted in iTunes?

Ive had my macbook pro for a few years now and I tend to have a lot of movies and shows on it. As a result Ive filled the storage and removed files to leave about 40% free space mainly deleting nearly all of my large video files. After stumbling upon a video I thought I deleted in a search I started searching for all the old titles I had. I found that every title I could remember being on my computer still had a full file on the hard drive. Is this sloppy filing on my part leaving duplicate files somehow or is deleting in iTunes not sufficient? (I did not press the keep files button)
—–
Tyler

Comments: 3 Responses to “Are iTunes files really deleted if deleted in iTunes?”

    13 years ago

    The question is: where did you find those files? Where were they.
    Deleting from iTunes should get rid of them completely. But there are different options you can choose when importing files too. You can, for instance, choose to NOT have iTunes move/organize your media. If you do that, then your iTunes library only contains references to the files. Deleting them just removes them from iTunes, not your hard drive.
    So it depends on how you have it set up in the iTunes prefs.

      wendy
      13 years ago

      I deleted too many music podcasts by accident and then pressed keep files option. How do I get them back?

        13 years ago

        Podcasts? Of they are podcasts, then I don't think you can get those files back to being podcasts the way iTunes lists them. But you can find them in your iTunes library folder, in your Music folder, if you really want to get to them to delete the files or move them. Just dig down into the folders there.
        You can always re-download the podcasts in iTunes. It may even recognize that you have the files and not re-download them if they are large. You can always Control+click on the podcast in your Podcast library and select to show all available episodes, restoring the episode list and then "get" the episode again.

Comments Closed.