Hatred of Itunes

Thank you! I'd prefer faffing about with skins etc as little as possible, the auto-skin of MusicBee does the trick (after some minor tweaks)

Updated my Mac for the first time in years and forgot that Itunes was going to be replaced by Music. I have a large digital library and I don't stream, so it's not really optimized for me. Took a while to figure out how to get the view back to my preference: songs listed, no images, sorting windows at the top and a proper search field. For about an hour I was ready to throw the computer in the front yard.

yeah and there's still some stuff that will just never let you default to songs, very annoying

The search function is what was really freaking me out. The search field gives stupid ass results. Turns out you have to enable something called filter field or some crap. Very non-intuitive, but I guess they’re not really making this product for people like me.

I've used MediaMonkey for years for mp3 organization and playlist creation. It's extremely feature rich, and I can't think of a single "power user" functionality that it doesn't have. If all you want to do is play music, then Winamp!

So explain to me why, if I have a soundfile playing in iTunes, and then I update the soundfile, iTunes plays the original one? I have to do this all the time for work, often having to go through multiple iterations of a sound file with lots of back and forward with clients and producers. But Apple (most amazing, user friendly comapny in the world) could never have conceived of this happening. FUCK THEM THE UTTER FUCKING WANKERS

I expect it will have to do with the setting that tells iTunes to copy music files to the iTunes library.

stupid iTunes library. I don't want an iTunes library.

You can just turn this off.

Do you happen to know how?
I often find the preferences sections of Apple software bewildering. There'll be a tick box and a description of what it does, but rarely explains what it means or what the alternative to ticking it is. Adn so often the options are just scattered randomly around. It's not designed for simple people like me.

I found a tickbox that says 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library', which I don't really understand and feel makes a lot of passive assumptions aobut the idea that I want a media folder or a library in the first place. Is this it?

(Sorry, Apple really brings out the crotchety in me)

Yeah that’s it.

Are you using iTunes to keep track of client files? Because it’s not really an editing/work storage tool.

why are play counts only recorded when I listen on my mac? I listen on my stupid phone all the time but iTunes doesn't record the plays. sigh

mh - so basically for work I have to be the go between from the client to the audio producer. I work with short sound files, but I don't really edit them myself. I just pull these files off the system or get them sent to me. sometimes, and for reasons I can't explain, I'll ask the producer to make edits to a sound file and send it back to me. But iTunes (being the default player) decides it's going to play the old file, even if I've saved the new one to a different folder or directory.

Yesterday I was trying to get Music to play the new Autechre album on my new Mac. My God. I don't know if I'm missing some part of my brain that should make this obvious, but nothing I did seemed to work. I was trying to drag and drop the files into Apple Music and it didn't work. I tried creating a playlist called Autechre - PLUS, then dragging and dropping into that. It didn't work.
At one point, I don't know how but I accidentally dragged an entire directory into it and it started trying to compile a library which I immediately stopped it doing, but the Ae album still wouldn't play.
I think after wrestling with the fuckers for 20 minutes, I eventually got it to play but the track sequence was in the wrong order.

I miss Winamp. You could drag and drop albums into Winamp, they'd appear in order, you could change the order, you could remove tracks from the order, and if you wanted you could save that order as a playlist. iTunes and Music are so pernickety and prescriptive in the way they insist you do things, I don't know how mere mortals are meant to use them

(being the default player)

this is the bit that mh was questioning

Vox might be a better fit for this, I think.

For what it’s worth, on a Mac if you right-click on a file of a type (mp3 for example) hit “Get Info” then expand “Open With” you can select an app and then hit “Change All”. This should change the system default.

If you’re dragging to an open Music app window, you have to drop on the “Library” bit on the sidebar. This is messy and a kind of bad behavior. If you drop files or a folder on to the app icon on the Dock, it should just work.

If, for work, you just need to listen to individual files, even something like VLC is sufficient and does no library management by default.

alternatively, you can always have QuickTime be the default for single audio files iirc, assuming you are on a mac

If the task you’re doing at your job is just proofing an audio file and then sending it on, using a Music library management application to do it is like pounding in a nail using the handle end of a screwdriver

thanks mh. I think maybe that's my beef with iTunes. it's too managey. I just want a player. that said, I'm yet to find a player that works brilliantly for this new Mac I have.

another thought, iTunes / Music will not play FLAC files, you need to transcode to ALAC using something like XLD.

if you miss winamp why not just use winamp?

(VLC seems likely better for your purposes, but if you're more comfortable with the llama's ass...)

Or Vox, like stet has already mentioned. I think I needed to add a plugin to get it to play flac or ogg files but since then it's been 0 trouble.

why are play counts only recorded when I listen on my mac? I listen on my stupid phone all the time but iTunes doesn't record the plays. sigh

― calstars

Nope

In 'song view' is there a way to always view small artwork on the left hand side? This used to be available but now I can't find the option

Ctrl+J and show artwork?

thanks, but there's no check box for artwork (I'm on Mac Catalina if that matters)

seems apple has removed this option in catalina but reinstated it in bug sir *sigh

bug sir

I'm really stuck with my new Mac.

I'm really more of a Windows user and have never used iTunes beyond just playing the odd thing. I find it really annoying to use, but maybe I am not using it properly?

In Windows Explorer, I used to be able to organise columns by ID3 tags, for example bitrate etc. Looks like Finder (for reasons beyond my comprehension) doesn't let you do this (thanks Apple). I'm told the solution is to use iTunes/Music but I'm scared it will start rooting through my HD and reorganising everything.

I just found a random folder full of duplicate files which I'd played in iTunes taking up space on my internal HD (thanks again Apple). If I hadn't discovered this folder, my internal drive would have filled up very quickly. I unticked the option that makes it do this, but it filled me with rage. Why would anyone in their right mind want this to happen?

For context, I have a two-decade old music library, 2TB big, on an external HD which I have curated in folders, sorted in alphabetical order, and then artist, and then album. That's how I find my music. I also use Serato, so music from around the HD is in various crates. Serato is very picky about indexing. If you even change the capitalisation on a track filename, Serato won't see it.

So I'm not really sure how I'm meant to use iTunes/Music to continue to curate my music. How do normal people with large libraries do it?

i’d say forget itunes and use something like vlc.

https://iina.io

the option to copy the files when you add them to itunes is what forces the organization of the files. You don't need to do that if you prefer to keep things organized yourself.

I've actually stopped using Music app (what was itunes) for playing files for the most part, I'm just using it for streaming. If you have a large collection of mp3s, particularly that large, it's worth just using something else. I use plex, personally.

If you're a folder person simply don't fuck w iTunes

then how do i see information like bitrate, album, artist, length etc of my files?

it just confounds me that something i've always taken for gratned in Windows is literally impossible on a Mac. When I speak to Mac users, they don't seem to understand what the issue is, and just keep telling me to use iTunes/Music. But I assume they don't really use music in the same way I do?

correct

So, short of going around to every Apple Music exec's house and threatening to stab their faces off until they improve basic functionality of their computers (which will probably be quicker), I've tentatively tried uploading part of my HD to the library. I'm hoping and praying it's not trying to copy all these files to the computer in the process. Annoyingly, Music has started playing music while it does this but the dialogue window won't let me hit Stop. Thanks Apple.

Wait, but this will only organise music on my HD... What about music in my downloads folder which I will later want to copy to my HD and then delete? I still won't be able to see track info in there unless I add it all to the library again? GAAHHHHHH!! FFS APPLE

Basically if you use iTunes, iTunes is your library. You can have music anywhere on your computer, neatly organized folders and subfolders or a complete mess (as I do), it doesn't matter, you import it into iTunes, you access it from iTunes, make playlists there and play everything from there. I have my issues with iTunes but I don't see anything bad with the way it's supposed to work. As both a Mac and Windows user I prefer the iTunes way by a long shot.

i get it. the problem is it would take me months to re-tag everything so it's in some working order. the idea of not having my music in folders gives me anxiety - what about duplicates and mis-tags? it would be fine if i were starting from scratch but there's almost 20 years of music on here

Just make sure the "organize my iTunes library" option is unchecked and it won't touch anything.

I mean yeah iTunes is annoying sometimes but it does what it does quite well. No need for irrational fear of a music player.

https://iina.io

― Canon in Deez (silby)

Just to say, thank you so much for this - just downloaded and it's exactly what I was looking for (I'm a "big hard drive with folders and lots of FLACs" guy, so iTunes/Music.app requires way too much cultivation). All the superficial niceties of using a Mac, but simple drag-drop-play operation.

ah missed this - will check it out!

All that and it embeds youtube-dl too

the idea of not having my music in folders gives me anxiety

I guess it depends on what you're used to, but my library is about 40,000 tracks and probably around 15 years old and I've never really had a problem with it. There are the occasional annoying quirks (the one that's enraging me now is having to toggle "Show filter field" every time I open the app -- why would I ever want that field hidden??) but for the most part it works fine for me. I like that it copies files to its own folder system and keeps them organized -- talk about anxiety, I can't imagine having to maintain that structure myself (if it's not something I've ripped from CD directly, I delete the original files as soon as the import is done so no duplicates, and I tag everything/correct cover art issues/etc immediately on import). And I definitely prefer seeing things organized like a library. Looking at my music as a list of files in the Finder (or Windows Explorer) feels too abstract; I don't want to look at songs the same way I look at other data. I've never owned a PC though so the whole idea of thinking of music files in that way is just totally foreign to me. I don't think it's so much an issue of the Mac people you've been talking to not using music the same way you do, it's that they (we?) are just more familiar with a completely different way of storing/organizing/viewing/playing the files.

I suppose it's different when you're switching to a whole new system with a huge existing library though. I didn't have a digital library when I started ripping CDs and importing downloads way back when, so it was easy enough to keep everything organized and tagged from day 1 and it's the only system I've ever known. Digging through folders to find the music I want to play seems like a really weird system to me.

I use iTunes for one task only, and that is to auto-organize my new music files on my PC

Yeah, like with photos, as soon as your collection grows beyond a certain size, basic folder organising doesn’t cut it anymore. I’m fairly happy with Music (the iTunes successor on macOS) because it’s still pretty fast even with 200,000+ songs and it’s quite powerful in terms of scripting, all the ways to slice and dice the library views and the smart playlisting.

My biggest gripe is that Apple’s music ecosystem still can’t handle multiple artists per song or multiple genres per song - there’s a couple of players/library managers that do support this, but they all have various other downsides.