Back up and restore music and video libraries
Overview
This article explains how to back up and restore your music and videos, as well as playlists, ratings, and the settings of your media player.
The concepts in this article apply to most media players, including MediaMonkey, Foobar2000, MusicBee, and iTunes. However, for specific iTunes instructions, see Restore your iTunes library.
Considerations
Most media libraries contain two different kinds of files: media files and configuration files.
- Media files include audio and video file types such as .mp3, .wav, .mp4, .avi, .wma, .mov, etc.
- Configuration files include your personalized settings such as playlists, song ratings, comments, and album art. Examples of these file types include .ini, .xml, .mdb, etc. The location of these configuration files varies. Refer to your specific media player's documentation for details.
To restore your media library to a previous state, you must back up your media and configuration files.
Back up media library
To back up your media library (including all media and configuration files):
- Open the Code42 agent.
- Click Manage Files to open your backup file selection.
- Review the files already selected for backup, and add files to your backup file selection as necessary.
- Ensure that your media library and media and configuration files are selected.
- Media: By default, the Code42 agent backs up your User directory or Home folder, which typically includes My Music, My Videos, etc. If you want to back up media files that are stored outside your User directory or Home folder, make sure to select those file locations as well.
- Configuration: The location of configuration files varies. Refer to your specific media player's documentation for details.
- Click Save.
Restore media library
To restore your media library (including all media and configuration files):
- Open the Code42 agent.
- Click Restore Files.
- If you back up to multiple destinations, select the destination from Restore files from.
For Code42 federal cloud destinations, the backup set list appears after Restore files from if you have multiple backup sets that use the same destination. Select the backup set that contains the files you want. - (Optional) If you want to restore an earlier version of your files, click As of Today to select a previous date from a calendar.
- Locate and select all of the media and configuration files that you want to restore.
- Click Restore Files.
Restore Files Options opens. - Verify that Save selected files to is set to Original Location. You can also adjust file naming guidelines and permissions.
- Click Go.
Library begins download and appears in Download Activity. Choose Show folder to access restored files once downloading is complete. - (Optional) Refer to your specific media player's documentation for any necessary steps to import your restored media library.
External resources
Backup and restore information for a few popular media players is listed below. Refer to your specific media player's documentation for details about the types and locations of files to back up.