Comments on: Fix the “iTunes Library.itl” Cannot Be Read Version Error When Downgrading iTunes

By: Jens

Jens — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:14:42 +0000

I tried all of my (6) old iTunes Library.itl files from “Previously iTunes Libraries”. Renamed them as you described, but all of them (even though the eldest is several years old) says cannot be read because created in a newer version of iTunes! I even have tried with a backup of my library folders and files, taken a few months ago. Same result.
I have deleted 11.1 and now have installed 10.7. I use Vista.
Help please

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:33:09 +0000

I downgraded because If I am playing music from my ipod in iTunes, I can not search it anymore. I have to go find an artist of genre by clicking the header. Inconvenient.

By: ricky

ricky — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:28:00 +0000

At first it didn’t work for me, but then I renamed the oldest “itl” file, and that worked.

By: Shalini

Shalini — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 05:02:26 +0000

It worked. Yaay. OMG. You are a legend. Thanks so much.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:10:58 +0000

I’ve followed these directions and others like it and the problem still occurs.
At first I deleted Itunes Library.itl because another site said it would work just the same. Of course it didn’t. So I just went to previous Previous Itunes Libraries and took the most recent file and renamed it as Itunes Library.itl and moved it to Itunes- didn’t work. Then renamed it Itunes Library.old. Still did not work.

By: Derek

Derek — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 14:09:54 +0000

Thanks a lot! I upgraded to iOS6 and needed to downgrade back to iOS 5. This site provided me the tools to do so! Many thanks!

By: Kode

Kode — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:33:07 +0000

Hello i recently just followed those steps, and i went to open itunes and none of my songs are present in the itunes library!? What should i do?

By: Mukund

Mukund — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:14:46 +0000

Thanks a lot it works for the changing name if library.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:00:57 +0000

this still doesn’t work for me. i renamed it and everything…
is this because i first downloaded itunes after the version i want initially came out?
i think i may have started using 10.5 and i want to use 10.3.

any help would be appreciated. thanks

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:04:40 +0000

My iTunes corrupted whilst upgrading to the newer version. Very simple instuctions and a quick fix until I try to upgrade again! (worked fine on XP by the way)

By: CuddlyD

CuddlyD — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:30:21 +0000

Although this was a tip for MacOS users, I used it to fix the same issue on my Vista system.

Thanks, you saved me a lot of pain.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:47:09 +0000

Thank you so much for this easy solution – worked perfectly for non-technical minded person like me!! BTW, icebreaker, no, I’m not autistic but my son was given an unused but old iPod to replace his broken one and I for one am grateful that I did not have to pay for a new one. Get a life.

By: kevinkendall

kevinkendall — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:35:25 +0000

Do a search for the filename “iTunes” on your HDD.

If you’ve got 2 or more versions of “iTunes.app” in different folders/areas of your hdd, & you’ve got old shortcuts to iTunes that you’re unwittingly using to try & fire up iTunes after, say, a Software Update which may have downloaded & auto-installed the newest iTunes into OSX’s default apps folder “/Applications” (when you’ve still got an older iTunes somewhere else in some other folder also) that’ll cause problems.
Multiple versions of apps, scattered around a hard drive, is the cause of some odd kinds of problems, many times.

By: Monique

Monique — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:25:29 +0000

I dont have the previous itunes library thing

By: Come eliminare i problemi con la Libreria in caso di downgrade di iTunes | iSpazio MAC

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:01:31 +0000

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