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Music (Itunes) syncing problem deleted contents of some playlists, can I repopulate them from beatunes?

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LKM

02 Mar, 2026 04:15 PM

Hiya
I'm having a problem due to trying to sync my Music (formerly iTunes) to an old iPad. After the sync, my playlists on my Macbook air Music application were empty. The music is still there, the name of the playlist is there, but there is nothing in the playlist. I haven't opened BeaTunes since before this happened. Is there a way to get the playlists out of Beatunes and repopulate the empty playlists in my Music app?

1. 1 Posted by djripley on 02 Mar, 2026 04:16 PM

   

   whoops this was me I wasn't logged in. Desperately hoping this will work!
   Macbook Air M2 Ventura 13.7.8

   (I'm updating my OS as I type)

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2. 2 Posted by steph on 02 Mar, 2026 05:12 PM

   

   Hi djripley

   I was never a fan of iTunes and now Music, but often there's no other option.

   You say that the tracks are still there – on your Macbook or iPad? Where are they stored? And where exactly do you see the playlist? Do you still have everything in beaTunes, including a playlist?

   I export the playlist from beaTunes as *.m3u. I then load this onto my Mac Mini into the “M3U Edit” app and export a “neutral” playlist, i.e., without paths, into a folder and the music right along with it. From there, I load everything onto my iPhone.

   Regards,
   Stephan

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3. 3 Posted by djripley on 02 Mar, 2026 05:38 PM

   

   Thanks for your response. Yes I too am not a fan, but because I use mutiple dj platforms, I need something that connects to all of them, where i can centrally manage my fairly large collection.

   as of now, nothing is on the ipad. I am running BeaTunes and iTunes on my macbook air. I'm giving up on the ipad for now. I just want the playlists back!

   The tracks are still in iTunes, but they are no longer in the playlists in iTunes. The playlists still exist- the titles are there- but they are empty. So I have a playlist titled PARTYFUNTIMES but there is no music in it.

   Sine I haven't yet opened BeaTunes since this happened, I am hoping that in BeatTunes the playlist PARTYFUNTIMES will still have the songs in it.

   My concern is, if I open BeaTunes will it automatically sync with iTunes and empty the playlists?

   If not, I could open it and export the PARTYFUNTIMES playlist somewhere and then.. how would I get that back into iTunes (on my Mac)?
   Or I could just open it as txt and manually add everything..

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4. 4 Posted by steph on 02 Mar, 2026 07:49 PM

   

   Hmmmm.....
   I would say that you can turn off synchronization BEFORE you start beaTunes.
    
   To do this in Finder, go to the Library (CMD-SHIFT-G) and enter this:
   ~/Library/Application Support/beaTunes
    
   There you will see the file preferences2.xml. Open it with TextEditor and search for this line:
   <synchronize>true</synchronize>

   You should see “true” there, in my setting it is "false". I prefer to start the sync manually. Change it to “false” and save the file. Then beaTunes will not synchronize when it gets focus. To be on the safe side, you can back up the entire contents of the beaTunes folder beforehand.
    

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <preferences>
       <components>
           <component id="beatunes">
               <key-text-renderer>com.beatunes.camelnot.CamelNot</key-text-renderer>
               <key-export-format>OPEN_KEY</key-export-format>
               <embed-audiometadata>false</embed-audiometadata>
               <force-audiometadata-writes>false</force-audiometadata-writes>
               <submit-manualvalues>true</submit-manualvalues>
               <file-collection persistentid="D771F5B476A84498" selected="true" name="FileSystem">
                   <root>/Volumes/Musik_Disk/Musik</root>
               </file-collection>
               <theme>com.tagtraum.beatunes.plaf.MacOSTheme</theme>
               <amazon>
                   <locale language="de" country="DE" variant=""/>
               </amazon>
               <synchronize>true</synchronize>
               <proxy enabled="false" host="localhost" port="8080" type="HTTP"/>
               <playlist-export enabled="false" exporter-id="M3UPlayListExporter"/>

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5. 5 Posted by Ripley on 02 Mar, 2026 08:50 PM

   

   Ok thanks I will try that

   If it works and I can export the playlist, is there a way to import it into itunes?

   Or do i need to manually enter everything in the list?

   Larisa Kingston Mann (she/her)
   Associate Professor
   Department of Media Studies & Production
   Klein College, Temple University
   [http://larisa-mann.com](http://larisa-mann.com/)My book Rude Citizenship: Jamaican Popular Music, Copyright, and the Reverberations of Colonial Power available NOW! https://uncpress.org/book/9781469667249/rude-citizenship/

   http:'//soundcloud.com/ripley
   Latest publication: Copyright vs. Electronic Dance Music: Law as Weaponized Culture in Oxford Handbook of Electronic Dance Music, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190093723.013.42.
   (pdf at https://shrtn.io/KoLSl )

   Sent from [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/mail/home) for iOS.

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6. 6 Posted by steph on 02 Mar, 2026 09:00 PM

   

   I have zero experience with iTunes. In cases like this, I ask ChatGPT or Gemini. I usually get useful answers—at least better than I often get in forums.

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7. 7 Posted by Ripley on 02 Mar, 2026 09:09 PM

   

   Ah if there’s one thing I hate more than Itunes it’s LLM based automated text predictors.

   If a human knows if the way to get the playlists into itunes I’m all ears

   I actually have 22 missing playlists so any less labor intensive option would be great

   <[email blocked]> wrote:

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8. 8 Posted by steph on 02 Mar, 2026 09:14 PM

   

   Your decision. Maybe you will find some help in reddit or Apple forums. Good luck.

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9. 9 Posted by steph on 04 Mar, 2026 10:21 AM

   

   Hi djripley

   Were you able to solve the problem with the playlists? If so, it might help other users if you share the solution.

   Thanks and best regards,
   Stephan

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10. 10 Posted by Ripley on 04 Mar, 2026 12:47 PM

    

    Not so far a solution to getting back what I lost or why it happened. But the BeaTunes playlist was helpful. getting an exported playlist into iTunes is pretty simple, One of the export option from that is the format read by iTunes so you can just drag and drop it in iTunes and it maps onto the existing music just fine

    Larisa Kingston Mann (she/her)
    Associate Professor
    Department of Media Studies & Production
    Klein College, Temple University
    [http://larisa-mann.com](http://larisa-mann.com/)My book Rude Citizenship: Jamaican Popular Music, Copyright, and the Reverberations of Colonial Power available NOW! https://uncpress.org/book/9781469667249/rude-citizenship/

    http:'//soundcloud.com/ripley
    Latest publication: Copyright vs. Electronic Dance Music: Law as Weaponized Culture in Oxford Handbook of Electronic Dance Music, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190093723.013.42.
    (pdf at https://shrtn.io/KoLSl )

    Sent from [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/mail/home) for iOS.

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