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How to recover accidentally deleted Playlists on Apple Music for Mac?

It seems that yesterday in Apple Music on the Mac I accidentally deleted my huge playlist of favorite tracks that I curated myself over the years. It has disappeared on all devices and I see no way to restore it.


It just occurred to me how it might have happened: On my mechanical keyboard there is a volume knob right next to the delete key. The knob is actually very handy for blindly adjusting the volume. If I'm not careful, I may press the Delete key.

If now a playlist is currently selected in the sidebar, which can happen when you've just started music, and you hit Delete, playlists are deleted immediately, without confirmation or anything. They are just gone. If you do notice it, you can undo it with cmd-z. But if you do it by accident, you usually don't notice it.


How can this be? No confirmation on something so important? Also, there seems to be no recycle bin functionality, like in Photos? Why Apple, just WHY?!


Is there any way that I can get my beloved playlist back?



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Mac mini

Posted on Aug 29, 2023 1:08 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 15, 2024 4:34 PM

DO THIS INMEDIATELY:


  • Take any Apple device that has Apple Music installed (your account must be active already).
  • Before entering Apple Music in the alternative device, deactivate wifi and mobile data network. If you can do it before unlocking the device, better.
  • Once you are in, duplicate your playlist.


If you were fast enough, you will be able to duplicate it on time.



The idea is quite simple: the app only updates its state from time to time, as long as you don’t directly interact with it (like by opening the app) and have Internet connection. This means that, if you deny Internet connection and then open the app, it will probably be outdated, allowing you to make a copy of the playlist.

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7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 15, 2024 4:34 PM in response to FUZZY DUNL0P

DO THIS INMEDIATELY:


  • Take any Apple device that has Apple Music installed (your account must be active already).
  • Before entering Apple Music in the alternative device, deactivate wifi and mobile data network. If you can do it before unlocking the device, better.
  • Once you are in, duplicate your playlist.


If you were fast enough, you will be able to duplicate it on time.



The idea is quite simple: the app only updates its state from time to time, as long as you don’t directly interact with it (like by opening the app) and have Internet connection. This means that, if you deny Internet connection and then open the app, it will probably be outdated, allowing you to make a copy of the playlist.

Aug 30, 2023 2:37 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks to your hint that the playlists are also stored locally, so you can restore them via backup, I was able to get my playlist back. THANK YOU!!!


Unfortunately, the process didn't quite work as your linked post says.

With cloud sync disabled and internet disconnected, the playlist did fully reappear via the library from the backup at first.

But once I reconnected to the internet and re-enabled cloud sync, only the tracks from the playlist that I had already downloaded at some point before were restored. All other titles were simply removed from the playlist.

I went through all of this numerous times in different orders, but the playlist was either not fully loaded, or completely removed. 


Here's the process that worked for me:

  • Open music and disable cloud sync of the library in the settings. 
  • close music
  • add the library restored from the backup to Users/[User]/Music/Music
  • re-open Apple Music and hold option-key while doing so
  • select the restored library file
  • your missing playlists should now show up in Apple Music again (because of the missing internet connection all tracks are greyed out that are not stored locally)
  • select the relevant playlist and go to Library/Export Playlist
  • save the playlist as txt file (eventually redo that step for multiple playlists)
  • (at this point, you could also revert back to the library you had before using the library from the backup, if needed, by reopening Apple Music via option-click)
  • reconnect to the internet and activate cloud sync in settings
  • now import the previously saved txt-files of the playlists via Library/Import Playlist 


This is what worked for me. 


Thanks again and all the best!


Edit: God damnit … I accidently selectet the wrong answer for best answer and don't know how to undo it. So sorry. ;(

Aug 30, 2023 4:39 AM in response to FUZZY DUNL0P

Hi,


Sorry to hear you had trouble with the process as I gave it. Perhaps it is because, even though iCloud Music Library was turned off, the library remembers it was connected to Apple Music and so syncs from the cloud instead of merging with it. An easier workaround would have been to export the library as an XML file, then reimport that after enabling Sync Library. Either way glad you got the playlists back.


tt2

How to recover accidentally deleted Playlists on Apple Music for Mac?

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