How To Clean Up Itunes Library On Mac

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How to Clean Up iTunes Library in 4 Easy Steps Your iTunes library is the gateway and guardian for all of the music you love; however, has it gotten out of hand? When you first began using iTunes to house music, it was a simple, clean location where picking a song to listen to only took a few seconds. Steps to Clear iTunes Library Easily and Quickly. Step 1: Back Up Your iTunes Library. You need back up the iTunes library before you clear it up. Enter 'File Library Consolidate Library' to copy all data files to the iTunes Music folder. Then move the folder to an external drive or another folder on your device.

Jul 19,2019 • Filed to: Manage Music • Proven solutions

One thing that becomes common between music loving computer users is the messy music library. Cleaning up iTunes music library and organizing music library manually can become an exhausting and time-consuming process when you have a massive collection of audio and video files. A few of the troubles faced for the iTunes cleaning up by most of the music loving gadget users are listed as below:

  • The bulky library has tracks with missing metadata information, album covers, and to top it all, clean up duplicate files in iTunes manually becomes an uphill battle.
  • Without the right tool, iTunes cleaning up becomes difficult to find the missing album covers and missing tracks.
  • Cleaning up iTunes library manually has human limitations, filling in the missing metadata information becomes harder.

Thankfully, there are many applications available to your rescue to clean up iTunes music library and organize your huge music collection in a better way. This article discusses how to clean up iTunes music library and organize your music library for iTunes on both Windows and Mac system.

Part 1. How to Clean Up iTunes Music Library – iMusic[Easest]

iMusic is a program that is developed to alleviate the pain of organizing and cleaning your massive iTunes library. The application is available for all Apple devices. The contents of your iOS devices can be managed in a more flexible and efficient way using this application. The best part is that the developers regularly upgrade the software for better functionality and advanced features.

The interface of iMusic is uncluttered, intuitive, streamlined and without a steep learning curve that makes it easy-to-use for beginners. You can effortlessly connect your Apple devices and transfer the data from one to another without having to save the data on the local hard drive of your PC.

In addition to this, iMusic lets you preview the media files before exporting or importing on its advanced built-in music player. In case you do not have an iTunes backup, this is a must-have application to restore media from your iOS device so that you don’t lose important data stored in it.

To start cleaning and orchestrating your iTunes music library, download iMusic on your PC. Both Windows and Mac versions are available, here we make Windows version for example. After installation, follow the given procedure to clean up iTunes music library.

iMusic - One of the Best Media Managing Tool for iPhone, iPod and the iPad Music Library

  • Download music from more than 300 music sites by copying and pasting the URL.
  • Record unlimited music from any website for playback in your computer with just one click.
  • Built-in music library let you browse and preview the lattest and hottest music.
  • Automatically save downloaded/recorded music to library for management and easy transfer.
  • Identify and tag music with artist, title, album, genre, and more with the latest technology.
  • Burn music to CDs in one click.
  • 1 click to transfer downloaded music and playlist to USB drive to enjoy in car.

How To Delete Itunes Library

Steps to Clear up iTunes Library by iMusic

Step 1.Launch iMusic on your PC and click TOOLBOX from the top-middle navigation. You will go to the toolbox interface.

Step 2. Then click CLEAN UP ITUNES LIBRARY option on the interface. A scanning library window will pop up.

Step 3. Start scanning the tracks by clicking Scan button, after the tracks in your library are scanned, the tracks which need to be fixed will be displayed at the bottom of the panel and the Scan button will turn to be Fix button accordingly.

Step 4. Click Fix button to clean up iTunes library at a time.

Note: But if you only want to fix one of the four items, you can choose to click one of the related options as well, like Missing Tags, Duplicate Tracks etc.

Video Tutorial: How to Clean Up iTunes Library with iMusic

Part 2. Clean Up iTunes Music Library on Windows

TuneUp Media is one of the best plug-in applications when it comes to organizing and cleaning your music collection. The software is available for both Windows and iOS devices. If you are a Windows user, you can download the application from the given link: https://www.tuneupmedia.com/download/windows.

TuneUp Media is a powerful and efficient tool to clean up missing or damaged tags and remove duplicate tracks from your music collection. To complement its suite of organizational and cleaning tools, TuneUp Media also comes with a smart feature called ‘Tuniverse’ that alerts you about the local concert events of your favorite artists. The advanced ‘DeDuper’ feature allows you to delete duplicate files in a jiffy.

Steps to Clean Up iTunes Music Library using TuneUp Media:

Step 1. Download and install TuneUp Media on your desktop computer or laptop PC.

Note: Once you complete the installation process, the application automatically integrates with your Windows Media Player and also connects to the online TuneUp server. When you launch TuneUp Media, the opened interface has four options available namely:

  • Clean (for cleaning your music collection)
  • Cover Art (for filling in the missing cover arts)
  • DeDuper
  • Tuniverse.

Step 2. To clean your iTunes library, open TunesUp Media and iTunes respectively and click 'Clean' in the sub-navigation below. And then directly drag songs from the iTunes interface that you would like to clean.

Note: If you are using TuneUp with Windows Media Player (WMP), you must select the desired songs in WMP, right-click the selection, select the Send To > Tune Up. This will have the same effect as dragging and dropping in iTunes.

Step 3. As you do so, the selected track(s)/album(s) is transferred to the TuneUp window where the program searches for the tag information from the online database.

Step 4. Once TuneUp Media completes its process, you can click the Save All or Clear All option from the top-right corner of the window to save the changes or remove the file(s) respectively.

Part 3. Clean Up iTunes Music Library on Mac OS X

Itunes

Although Mac OS X has less software applications that can do the legwork of cleaning your music library, that doesn’t mean you have to settle for iTunes. One of the best software available for Mac OS is MusicBrainz Picard.

You can download Piccard from the given link: https://picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads/.

The latest version of Picard focuses on album-oriented tagging and cross-platform compatibility. This approach allows you to utilize the MusicBrainz database to the brim. It has replaced the earlier ‘Classic’ tagger that worked on track-oriented approach. With Picard, you can conveniently clean your bulky and unorganized music library with ease.

Steps to Use MusicBrainz Picard for cleaning your music library:

Step 1.Download the application from the link given above and install it on your PC.

Note: Before proceeding, you need to copy the tracks from your iTunes library to a separate new folder on your computer.

Step 2. Once done, open MusicBrainz Picard.

Step 3.Click the Add Folder button from the top.

Step 4. From the opened Find Directory box, locate the Desktop folder, and drag the files from the new folder on your desktop to the left column on the upper section of the window.

Step 5. As soon as the tracks are copied, and Picard displays them under the Unmatched Files list in the left column of the upper section of the window, select the main Unmatched Files option, and click the Look up button from the standard toolbar at the top.

Note: As you do so, MusicBrainz Picard searches for the files’ information in the MusicBrainz database. Once the information is gathered, the files are then sorted according to their albums, and are displayed in the right column of the upper section of the window.

Note: The displayed tracks start out with a musical note icon. When the tracks become associated with your file, they change to one of the followings:

  • A small red rectangle indicates a bad match from the database whereas a green rectangle indicates a satisfactory match.
  • A red rectangle means that Picard has encountered an error.
  • A green check mark indicates that the track is up-to-date and saved.

Step 6. You can view and compare the tag information by tapping the name of the track, and going through the Original Information and the New Information that appear on the lower section of the window.

Step 7. Once you are satisfied with all the edited metadata, right-click the Album icon (appears as a Compact Disk next to the name of the album), and click the Save option from the context menu.

Step 8. To delete the duplicate files, you can click the file(s) highlighted in red and click the Remove button from the standard toolbar at the top.

How to reset iTunes on macOS

Sometimes to go forward you need to go back. iTunes is one of the most popular apps in the world, and Apple has made some great strides over the years. There is no denying that iTunes is the media hub for many, but sometimes a new version arrives that is broken, or introduces a feature that you don’t like, or removes a feature that you did like.

That’s why in this guide we’re going to show you how to take full control over your version of iTunes. We’ll cover how to reinstall iTunes, clean up iTunes junk files, perform a complete uninstall of iTunes and possibly even downgrade to an earlier version of iTunes.

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Mar 18, 2020  Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive. Before you start, be sure to. How to copy the Photos library to a hard drive If you have a large photo library on your Mac, transferring the photos to an external drive can save you valuable storage space. We advise you to get. How to copy photos library to external hard drive mac. Dec 11, 2018  Photos are some of the most important files people want to keep safe. Storing them in the cloud is nice, but you might also want the peace of mind of having your pictures stored locally. Luckily, it’s easy enough to copy your Mac’s Photos library to an external drive. Nov 09, 2018  Free up your space by transferring your Photos library to another external hard drive. By freeing up space you will have valuable space for your work on your Mac. In addition to this, we will help you to back up your whole photo library to iCloud. Why store photos on external drive In today’s world,. Manually copy your library to an external storage device: Drag the Photos library (by default in the Pictures folder on your Mac) to your storage device to create a copy. If you have more than one photo library, be sure to back them all up.

Reinstall iTunes

A healthy iTunes is a great experience but if the app starts behaving strangely then it’s time to take action. If iTunes keeps playing Britney Spears music for no reason, your Mac is probably demonically possessed. Unfortunately, you will have to set fire to your Mac. It’s the only way.

However, if you iTunes is merely crashing or freezing then a simple iTunes reinstall should solve the problem. You could first try to download the latest version of iTunes and run the installer.

Even if it’s the same version as you have installed, this will reinstall iTunes without any hassles.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, you should completely uninstall iTunes before you run the downloaded install.

Completely Uninstall iTunes

Whether you want a more effective reinstall of iTunes or if you want to remove the app from your life for good, we’ve got you covered. You may have realized that Apple doesn’t make it easy for you to uninstall iTunes, so it requires a few extra steps.

Note – A complete uninstall iTunes app will remove your user settings, playlists, etc.

To completely uninstall iTunes follow these steps:

  1. Drag the desktop iTunes icon to the trash - if you receive an error continue to step 2, if you don’t skip to step 6
  2. Right-click the iTunes.app file in the Applications folder and click Get Info
  3. Click the padlock icon and enter your Admin Password
  4. Expand Sharing & Permissions and set 'everyone' to Read & Write
  5. Close the window and try step 1 again
  6. Empty the Trash
  7. Type Activity Monitor into Spotlight and launch the app
  8. Find iTunes Helper and remove it
  9. Navigate to Library > Preferences and remove files with 'com.apple.itunes' at the beginning
  10. Restart your Mac

Clean iTunes Junk

Speaking of cleaning iTunes, if you use the app – even if it runs perfectly - you should try out CleanMyMac’s specialist iTunes Junk cleaner. You wouldn’t believe all the wasted space iTunes takes up thanks to broken downloads, copies of apps, old backups, and all sorts of other junk.

A quick scan from CleanMyMac and you’ll be given the option to clear up a lot of space – space that can be used for more important things.

No, not Britney Spears albums.

Downgrade iTunes to an earlier version

There comes a time where a new version of iTunes makes us wish we never updated in the first place. We want to be clear that the best thing to do is give the new version time, see if there isn’t a workaround to solve

whatever it is that’s bothering you and submit feedback to Apple.

If you’re impatient and you want to roll back iTunes now, then there is a method that could achieve exactly that. This solution will only be possible if you use Time Machine to create regular backups.

Important Note – Before you begin make sure to create a Time Machine backup. If anything goes wrong, you can just restore to the current version of macOS.

Here's how to downgrade iTunes:

  1. Type Activity Monitor into Spotlight and launch the app
  2. Find iTunes Helper and remove it
  3. Type Terminal into Spotlight and launch app
  4. Type sudo rm –r /Applications/iTunes.app and press Return
  5. Type Time Machine into Spotlight and launch the app
  6. Restore the version of iTunes you want from the relevant Time Machine backup
  7. Also, restore these files from the ~/Music/iTunes folder:
    iTunes Library Extras.itdb
    iTunes Library Genius.itdb
    iTunes Library.itl
    iTunes Music Library.xml

iTunes should now be reverted to an old version, with all your settings and data intact.

Putting the “I” Back In iTunes

We hope that this guide helped you to feel more in control of your iTunes for Mac. There is no doubting that iTunes is an awesome app, but Apple’s insistence can be a bit overhanded at times. Now you can make iTunes cleaner with CleanMyMac X, fix a broken iTunes, downgrade iTunes to an earlier version and even uninstall iTunes completely.

How To Clean Up Itunes Library

You have the control and the power. Use it wisely*

*By never downloading Britney Spears songs.

How To Clean Up Itunes Library On Mac Download

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