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January 2024

September 29 2015 - 9:12 am

NEW: View Cached Music

When Apple Music was announced back in June I didn't think I'd care for it. But during the 3-month free trial, I found myself using it a few times a week. It's good for a quick playlist in the "For You" section and I'm often delighted by some of the stuff suggested. And, despite never really taking to Spotify, I like being able to play those, "I Just Thought of Something!" albums and artists at the drop of a hat. I use it from the Music app on my phone and from iTunes on a couple of Macs in the house.

Now, I'm not giving up my exquisitely maintained iTunes audio file library by any means. But Apple Music is fun and convenient so I'm staying on as a subscriber.

But then I found out that the audio files of all those Apple Music tracks I'd been cavalierly listening to are were being downloaded and stored in my Mac's Home folder. As a result, my hard disk had about 3 gigabytes of protected mystery files that I wasn't sure were deserving of quarter. I mean, like...What songs are those?

So to figure that out I came up with View Cached Music:

View Cached Music

View Cached Music is an app (not a script) that will list track information about any extant cached audio files giving you a modestly-detailed history of the music you've been listening to in Apple Music on your Mac. It also provides a means to play audio previews (as in the screenshot above), open the Album and Artist pages of these tracks in Apple Music, copy-to-clipboard their artwork, and delete any cached audio files you may consider superfluous.

I've been using it to track down songs I've listened to which I hadn't paid much attention to the first time around. (Apple Music's Up Next has a Previously Played panel which can be useful, too.)

View Cached Music is free, requires OS X 10.9 or later and Apple Music activated. More information and download is on this page.

And if you don't care about the trove of music history buried in the cache folder, there is always Flush Apple Music Cache Files.

September 26 2015 - 8:47 am

NEW: Flush Apple Music Cache Files

The first wave of Apple Music trials will be expiring soon and if you haven't subscribed for real it means saying so long to any Apple Music added to your iTunes library.

But as Kirk pointed out a while back, there may be some residual files left over in the ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iTunes/SubscriptionPlayCache/ folder, which is sort of like an "iTunes Media" folder for Apple Music. It stores the specially protected audio files that are downloaded when you play a track from Apple Music on your Mac, ostensibly so iTunes doesn't have to re-download them if they are played again. They can't be user-played and are only useful to Apple Music. (This cache folder doesn't apply to Radio music. Or to Apple Music you've added to your library for offline use, which is stored in your official "ITunes Media" folder.)

I'm not sure if these files will disappear when the trial ends for you. iTunes doesn't appear to remove them even now, so if you've used Apple Music a lot then this folder will be loaded with quite a number of full-sized audio files. I'm a sucker for some of those "For You" playlists and I've managed to get my own cache folder up to about 7GB.

Flush Apple Music Cache Files is a simple script that will show the number of files in the cache and the space they take up and, if you wish, delete them:

And if you're subscribing to Apple Music and are tight on drive space, you can flush all you want anytime. Apple Music will re-download any music it requires again later.

Download the script from this page.

September 16 2015 - 1:38 pm

iTunes 12.3

Apple released iTunes 12.3 today. It adds support for iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and two-factor authentication. It also fixes some issues with Up Next sorting, radio stations not appearing in Recently Added, and problem coordinating loved songs.

September 4 2015 - 9:09 am

Join Together v7.5.0

Join Together will create and export a single AAC or ALAC audio file from the audio data of tracks dragged from iTunes or files dragged from the Finder.

Join Together in action

Join Together features:

  • Create a single audio file from two or more files drag-and-dropped from iTunes or the Finder
  • Export final file as AAC or ALAC (Apple Lossless) and automatically add to iTunes as a Music or Audiobook track
  • Join Together handles all audio processing; QuickTime or other third-party apps aren't required
  • Non-destructive—source files are left intact
  • Flexible export options
  • Easily supply tags, artwork and playback options for the final file
  • Arrange, Get Info and audition tracks in the Track List
  • Save names and timing of source tracks as table-of-contents to Lyrics tag of final file
  • Built-in and online help

This latest version provides a button to reset the AAC export settings to 128kbps stereo @ 44.100 mHz for convenience; provides UI compatibility fixes between older and newer OS X operating systems; additional compatibility support for iTunes 12.2 and later; maintenance fixes and performance enhancements.

Join Together is free to try in Demo Mode during which all of its features are available. However, in Demo Mode the volume-level of the exported file will be sharply reduced after a few minutes and through the duration of the file. A registration code which will unlock the volume restriction is $5.00. This is a free update for registered users.

September 1 2015 - 5:57 am

M3Unify v1.4.0

M3Unify is a flexible file exporter and M3U playlist creator that will allow you to off-load copies of your iTunes songs to a user-chosen location, separate folder, external drive, USB thumb drive, SD card and so on, the way you and your audio player want.

M3Unify in action

With M3Unify you can:

  • Copy files of tracks dragged from iTunes to a selected folder
  • Rename copied files using substitution patterns based on track tags
  • Create Album or Artist or Artist/Album sub-folders based on track tags
  • Export album artwork as "folder.jpg" files, one per Album sub-folder
  • Create an M3U playlist
  • Format M3U Extended track information using substitution patterns based on track tags
  • Optionally convert files to AAC files (or MP3 files via iTunes)

Plus, M3Unify features:

  • M3U preview
  • Track information and auditioning
  • Uncluttered, easy-to-use interface
  • On-board and online help

I use M3Unify to regularly update thumb drives that I use in my car, as I explain in this video at YouTube.

This latest version adds the ability to create discrete "Artist" sub-folders (in addition to the previous ability to create "Album" sub-folders); a preference toggle to export tracks of compilation albums into a "Compilation" folder, as iTunes does; adds a "View Options" panel; additional support for OS X 10.11 El Capitan; and minor tweaks and performance enhancements.

This is a free update for registered users. It's free to try with a 15-track limitation and $5.00 to purchase. More information and video is on this page.

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