How to Backup and Recover a MediaMonkey Library

10979 17 11 December 4th, 2024

The MediaMonkey for Windows database contains a lot of valuable information about your media library. Some data, like tags, are saved to the files (depending on settings and tag support for the file format), while other data like Playlists, play history, podcast subscriptions, device profiles, etc. are only stored in the MediaMonkey for Windows database file. We recommend to regularly backup the database (best practice is to a different drive or a cloud service) in case the drive your database is located on fails or the database becomes corrupted.

Backup

To backup your library:

  1. Backup the MediaMonkey database file:
    1. In MediaMonkey 5+ use File > Manage Database from the Main Menu to setup automatic backups.
    2. In all MediaMonkey versions you can manually or via backup software backup the database file (mm.db) by creating a copy of it.
  2. Backup all of your media files

hint: You can change MediaMonkey’s default database location to one that is automatically backed up by your backup software.

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Recovery

To recover your library:

  1. Install a copy of MediaMonkey for Windows to the new hard drive or PC. Don’t start MediaMonkey after installation completes.
    Important: if already have MediaMonkey on the drive and Folder Monitoring is enabled, disable it (otherwise you’ll end up with duplicates).
  2. Copy all of your media files to the new drive
  3. Copy your database backup to the new drive
  4. Recover your database either by:
    • For MediaMonkey for Windows 5+ run MediaMonkey and using File > Manage Database > Restore from backup… function
    • OR close MediaMonkey for Windows, copy your backup database to the default database location and restart MediaMonkey for Windows.
  5. At this point, your database should appear–if not, it means that MediaMonkey for Windows is not using your database backup and likely created a new empty database. Repeat step 4 to replace the empty database with your backup.
  6. Once your database is visible in MediaMonkey for Windows, it’s possible that many of the media entries will be greyed out. This occurs if the paths to media files on the new drive/PC are different than on the old drive/PC. To correct this, see step 3.5 at: Why is Music Greyed Out / Fails to Play?
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Alternative Options

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Applies to: ,

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