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30 Most Recent RSS Feed"10 things that iTunes does right"
Kirk lists ten things iTunes does right at Macworld.
I'm very partial to #10.
NEW: Apps Assist
I'm pleased to announce the debut of Apps Assist, a utility application (it's not a script) that can display the installed, missing and orphaned iOS apps on your Mac.
If you've been an avid downloader of iOS apps over the years and back them up via iTunes to your Mac but never had a look in your Mobile Applications folder, well, I shudder to think how many files you've got in there that may be outdated, duplicated, or abandoned. To my own surprise, I had over twice as many unused versions of apps in there than I had installed apps.
Apps Assist will help you easily determine which apps are viable and which you might consider sending to the Trash. In the screenshot above, the black colored iOS app listings are installed, the gray ones are missing (these appear iconless and gray in iTunes), and the blue ones are orphaned in the Mobile Applications folder—they're just outdated or otherwise not installed. Apps Assist provides tools to filter and sort the apps list, Trash selected files, view selected apps' .ipa files in the Finder, export the apps list as a tab-delimited text file, and more. Probably most handy is being able to see the Filenames and Purchaser IDs for each app.
Apps Assist requires iTunes 12.2 or later running on OS X 10.8 or later. It's free to try with limited functionality and frequent nags urging you to purchase a registration code for $1.99, which will restore full functionality.
Hooray! Sort Of
Apple fixed the drag from Playlist View problem!
But they didn't fix the current track in For You predicament or the drag from Audiobooks setback. So maybe these are not problems at all but just the way it's going to be.
iTunes 12.2.2 Released
Apple has released iTunes 12.2.2 which fixes some Apple Music issues, some issues with sorting and displaying playlists and includes the obligatory improvements to overall stability and performance.
UPDATED: Sort by Artwork Size v1.1
Sort by Artwork Size v1.1 can write the size of a track's artwork (eg: "600x600") to choice of Category, Comments, Description or Episode ID tag (enabling tracks to be sorted by artwork size in a playlist using the chosen tag) and/or copy tracks with artwork less than or greater than a user-entered size to a new discrete playlist.
Note that if choosing the first option, the chosen tag will be re-written so it is best to choose a tag that is not already in use or not typically associated with a track's kind; for example, use the Episode ID tag (a TV Show tag) for music tracks or the Category tag (a Podcasts tag) for videos.
This latest version adds support for OS X 10.11 and accommodates changes in iTunes 12.2 and later.
Free to try for ten days, $1.99 thereafter. More info and download is on this page.
UPDATED: Search Results to Playlist v2.1
Search Results to Playlist can search a chosen category (Library, Music, Movies, etc) or the selected playlist for user-entered text by All, Song, Artist, Album, or Composer tag and copy the track results to a Search Results playlist, which will be created automatically if necessary.
It can optionally re-create or append to the Search Results playlist on each run. Floats over iTunes while active for easy access.
This latest version has some minor fixes for compatibility with iTunes 12.2+ and accommodations for OS X 10.11 beta.
More information and download is on this page.
Get Asked This A Lot
"Do you have any scripts that work with iCloud Music Library/iTunes Match tracks? Like, to delete the cloud uploads and re-upload tracks?"
No. AppleScript cannot access anything in the cloud. Here's one of the reasons why: While it's certainly possible for me to write a script that arbitrarily deleted local tracks and files on your computer (with or without your knowledge), that's OK because presumably you knew stuff was going to get deleted by running the script. It's your responsibility, and Apple doesn't care what you do on your machine. You could set in on fire if that's what you wanted to do. Or install Flash. However, stuff in the cloud is Apple's responsibility. And they have pretty much guaranteed you that your goods up there are safe. So they're not going to let an AppleScript (of all things!) have arbitrary access to your goods in the cloud where it could potentially be a bad actor.
AppleScript can manipulate cloud tracks locally; for instance, copy such tracks to a new playlist or edit their tags. But anything to do directly with the cloud is strictly out-of-bounds.
Site Issues Update
The site issues I mentioned previously are fixed. However, please don't hesitate to contact me if you experience any problems on the site. I'm still tying up loose ends. Thanks for your patience!
Site Issues
The site is experiencing some issues. I may be moving to a new hosting server as a result. Please excuse any disruptions or anomalies.
UPDATED: Music Folder Files Not Added v5.0
Music Folder Files Not Added v5.0 will list the file paths of the files in your designated "iTunes Media" folder which are not in iTunes' track library.
The files listed in this screenshot are in my iTunes Media/Music/ folder but are not in the iTunes track library. In my case, this iTunes Media folder is used by two different iTunes installations on different partitions, so it is also possible that these files are added as track entries in the iTunes on the other partition. However, it is not uncommon to delete the tracks from iTunes without choosing to Trash the files.
Additionally, you can select a different parent folder and its contents will be compared to the iTunes library. Includes options to Filter results, Add a selection of found files to iTunes (Mobile Applications can not be added this way), move them to the Trash, and Export a text file listing the file paths.
This latest version includes PDF, Mobile Application, iTunes LP and iTunes Extra files when used with iTunes 12.2 or later; adds a Filter option to show only file paths containing entered text; has general performance tweaks.
Music Folder Files Not Added is free to try for 10 days and is $1.99 thereafter. More information and download is on this page.
