ITunes Library Persistent ID Editor

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ITunes Library Persistent ID Editor.

Sample usage:

fxml = 'iTunes Music Library.xml'    # path to xml file
fitl = 'iTunes Library.itl'          # path to itl file

itk = ITunesLibKeys(fxml, fitl)

print itk.file_xml                   # prints path to xml file
print itk.file_itl                   # prints path to itl file
print itk.xml_key                    # prints key on xml
print itk.itl_key                    # prints key on itl
print itk.valid_key                  # prints True if keys match

itk.new_user_key()                   # ask for user input key

itk.xml_key_replace(itk.itl_key)     # replace key on xml file with the itl key

itk.itl_key_replace(itk.new_key)     # replace key on itl with user input key
fxml = 'iTunes Music Library.xml'       # path to xml file
fitl = 'iTunes Library.itl'             # path to itl file

itk = ITunesLibKeys(fxml, fitl)

if not itk.valid_key:                      # if keys don't match
    itk.xml_key_replace(itk.itl_key)       # replace xml key with the itl key
import binascii

class ITunesLibKeys():
    def __init__(self, xml_file, itl_file):
        self.file_xml = xml_file
        self.file_itl = itl_file
        self.xml_key = self.xml_key_find()
        self.itl_key = self.itl_key_find()
        self.valid_key = self.key_compare()
        self.new_key = ''

    def xml_key_find(self):
        f_x = open(self.file_xml)
        f_xml = f_x.readlines()
        f_x.close()    
        for item in f_xml:
            if item.find('<key>Library Persistent ID</key>') != -1:
                before_xml, tag_before, rest_xml = str(item).partition('<key>Library Persistent ID</key><string>')
                key_xml, tag_after, after_xml = rest_xml.partition('</string>')
        return key_xml

    def itl_key_find(self):
        f_i = open(self.file_itl, 'rb')
        f_itl_bin = f_i.read()
        f_i.close()
        f_itl_hex = str(binascii.hexlify(f_itl_bin)).upper()
        return f_itl_hex[104:120]

    def key_compare(self):
        if self.xml_key == self.itl_key:
            return True
        else:
            return False

    def new_user_key(self):
        while len(self.new_key) != 16:
            self.new_key = raw_input('Enter the new key:').upper()
        
    def xml_key_replace(self, sel_key):
        f_x = open(self.file_xml)
        f_xml = f_x.read()
        f_x.close()    
        f_xml = f_xml.replace(self.xml_key, sel_key)
        f_x = open(self.file_xml, 'w')
        f_x.write(f_xml)
        f_x.close()   

    def itl_key_replace(self, sel_key):
        f_i = open(self.file_itl, 'rb')
        f_itl_bin = f_i.read()
        f_i.close()
        f_itl_hex = str(binascii.hexlify(f_itl_bin)).upper()
        f_itl_hex = f_itl_hex.replace(self.xml_key, sel_key)
        f_i = open(self.file_itl, 'wb')
        f_itl_bin = binascii.unhexlify(f_itl_hex)
        f_i.write(f_itl_bin)
        f_i.close()

Dani AI

Generated

provided a useful, practical starting point for editing the iTunes "Library Persistent ID". The class shows the basic flow (read XML, read ITL, compare and replace). A few targeted refinements will make it safer, more robust across Python versions, and less likely to corrupt your library.

Always quit iTunes and make full backups of both the XML and the .itl before modifying them. Avoid doing a blind global hex-string replace on the entire ITL: the same byte pattern can appear elsewhere and a global replace can silently corrupt the file. Instead, locate the exact binary occurrence and patch only that slice, then atomically replace the original file (write to a temporary file and call os.replace). Use context managers (with open(...)) to ensure files are closed.

Python 3 notes: replace raw_input with input; binascii.hexlify() returns bytes, so decode to ASCII (or use bytes.hex()), e.g. hexstr = binascii.hexlify(data).decode('ascii').upper(). Validate user-entered keys (ensure 16 hex characters, use a regex like ^[0-9A-F]{16}$ after uppercasing). After changes, restart iTunes and confirm the library opens cleanly; if not, restore the backup.

Example pattern (conceptual) for a safe binary patch:

with open(itl_path, 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()
idx = data.find(bytes.fromhex(xml_key))
if idx != -1:
    data = data[:idx] + bytes.fromhex(new_key) + data[idx+8:]
    # write to temp file, fsync, then os.replace(temp, itl_path)

Test on copies only. These steps keep 's approach but reduce risk and improve cross-version compatibility.

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