How to Repair a Corrupt WMP Database: Recovering Music

Rebuild the database to recover your precious media library.

By
Mark Harris
Writer
Mark Harris is a former writer for Lifewire who wrote about the digital music scene and streaming music services in an easy to understand, no-nonsense manner.
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Mark Harris
Updated January 10, 2020

If your Windows Media Player no longer allows you to view, add, or delete items in WMP's library, then there’s a good chance that its database has been corrupted. To fix this problem, simply rebuild the WMP database. This will solve the problem if your media library is corrupted.

How to Rebuilding the Windows Media Player Database

Music can boost your energy
Sam Edwards / Getty Images

  1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box.

  2. Type or copy/paste this path into the text box: ​

    %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player

  3. Then select ​Enter.

  4. Delete all the files in this folder—excluding folders.

  5. To rebuild the database, simply restart Windows Media Player. All the relevant database files will now be created again.