iTunes Maintenance

Perhaps you change your car's oil on a regular schedule (you should). You pay bills on a regular schedule. Perhaps you have other household routines you schedule on a regular basis--cleaning bathroom, changing sheets, clipping the dog's nails, weeding the garden, Swiffering the computer desk, and so on.

How about tending to your iTunes music collection?

Many people who frequent this site are looking for AppleScript solutions that will instantaneously completely transform their un-tidy iTunes Library into a pristene-perfect Library of Congress-quality digital music collection. To the contrary, I've found that there's no need to try and get iTunes maintenance done in one fell swoop. If you take your time to manicure your iTunes music regularly you will not only avoid frustration but maybe get to know your collection better.

I spend only about a half-hour a week pruning, updating, re-tagging, deleting, Smart Playlisting.... Usually, the best time for me is on Saturday morning. Just after the second cup of tea and before my wife announces (decrees) the Weekend Activities. Here's my regimen:

• Find duplicates - Using either iTunes' own "Show Duplicates" or Dupin, I assemble a list of possible duplicates. This assemblage contains the (so-called) "original" track and the (so-called) duplicate(s). I actually listen to a portion of each track, and/or check the bit rate and sample rate, and/or do a "Get Info", and/or check the file (using "Show In Finder", Command/R) to make sure which is the "original" and which is/are the "duplicate/s". Delete accordingly. (See iTunes Help Menu "Keyboard Shortcuts" on how to delete tracks/files from a playlist.) Remember, I don't check every track since I only have a half-hour on Saturday before wife says clean garage.
• Check for empty tags - Do a sort by Album. Find tracks with blank albums. Do a sort by Artist. Find tracks with blank Artists. And so on with other tags. Correct, if necessary.
• Check Artwork - I use artwork tool in TrackSift. Then I use Find Album Artwork with Google to locate artwork. Of course, you can always use iTunes own "Get Album Artwork" in the Advanced Menu.
• Examine playlists - I'll often create temporary playlists (Smart and regular) and then forget about them. Now's the time to get rid of them.
• Archive TV Shows and Movies - I subscribe to several TV Shows. When the season ended for "Ugly Betty" and "My Name Is Earl" I dumped the shows to DVDs and deleted the files from iTunes. Likewise, I delete episodes of "The Daily Show" after a couple of weeks; since they are so topical, unless there is a real keeper, they get deleted.
• Always sort by Date Added - All my main libraries (Music, TV Shows, Audiobooks, and so on) are sorted by Date Added (newest on top) so I only have to scroll to the bottom to find out What The Deal Is. Archive 'em or delete 'em.

I certainly do other tasks which are me-specific, but the point is to do them regularly. Otherwise your library will almost certainly get out of control. Remember, you don't have to fix everything this Saturday. Take it one Saturday at a time.

iTunes 7.3 - Bundled Apps

Last August, this article at Mac OS X Hints pointed out the differences between AppleScript Application and Application Bundles running on PPC and Intel Macs. At the time, I asked if Bundles displayed and worked correctly in iTunes' Script Menu on an Intel Mac--they did not. However, the original poster, Harry Dymond, just emailed me to let me know that iTunes 7.3 (and/or perhaps OS 10.4.10) resolves this issue.

MPAA Ratings

Several people have asked me if it is possible to add or change the MPAA ratings of TV Shows and Movies via AppleScript. From what I gather, the simple answer is no. As far as AppleScript goes, there is no such thing as a "MPAA rating" property which can be directly accessed. As far as I can tell (and I haven't spent a lot of time investigating this), video files downloaded from the iTunes Store contain the MPAA data. For instance, my "Daily Show" video files contain some info that looks like this: "us-tv|tv-14|500|". This can also be seen in the XML file in the Content Rating node--remember that the XML file is written out by iTunes, not read in by iTunes, so changing the XML file does nothing. I actually opened one of video these files in TextEdit, changed the "tv-14" of this string to "tv-ma", and after saving the file, "TV-MA" appeared in the Track Name of the show. It took quite a while, but I'm sure a perl routine could do it faster. But be that as it may, I am not sure how to add an MPAA rating to a file which you may have gotten by some means. I am aware that the program Losify (which I recommend!) is able to do it, but the file does need to be re-written.