Ten Steps for a better iTunes experience

Before moving to college I have a long list of things that I need to accomplish, of course there are the very important things, like four hours of alcohol education, and the things that I have been trying to get done before I move. One of those things has been to combine my three iTunes libraries, sync my three iPods on one computer and optimize iTunes for my college experience.

Having three computers, one PC, a Mac mini and, of course, my Mac Book Pro, I knew that I could not take all of my equipment to college, so I eliminated the desktops and consolidated all my media for my Mac Book Pro, since my monitor is too big for my dorm’s desk.

1. Combining all the Media to another source

iTunes is great for the average music fan, but can be even better for those who have a huge selection if they know how to optimize it correctly. I moved all my files to an external hard drive which I named “The Beast.” Within “The Beast” I created a folder with all my media for iTunes. Once my media was there I dragged the folder containing the media into iTunes, to show the program where I have it stored.

2. De-authorization

One of the best features iTunes offers is de-authorizing a computer. I saw this option before and thought I would never use it, but moving my files around (some of which were purchased through iTunes) I had to de-authorize. To de-authorize is to tell iTunes that this computer no longer plays this media, and allows you to continue to move the files purchased on iTunes four more times.

When content is purchased on iTunes the DRM only allows it to be moved to four other sources, de-authorizing allows you to continue to move it to other sources.

3. Telling iTunes where to store your content

Just because you have added all of your files to iTunes does not mean that iTunes will store future files there, in fact iTunes feels the need to store files in a folder it sets aside, but do not worry, it is easy to store all your files in another folder.

Go into the Preferences section of iTunes, click the Advanced option and under the General tab you will see location, click the Change button to the left, choose your folder and click OK. Now all content that you rip, or buy from iTunes will be stored in this folder.

4. Killing those old podcasts automatically

Even though my content is being stored on the 250 gigabyte “Beast” I still hate to hold on to those old podcasts I have already watched or listened to. Once again the Preferences in iTunes allow you to delete old episodes. Click the Podcast tab in Preferences and in Available you can choose how many episodes you would like to keep. I decided to keep only the most recent, but there are other options including the past 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and unplayed episodes. You decide.

5. Ditch the fade

If you are like me, and I trust that you are because you are reading my tips, then you might leave iTunes running in the background while you are on the computer. When I play songs some of my favorite parts of songs are the ends, and I hate how iTunes fades my songs together. This may be just me, but I turned off the fade in Preferences in the Playback tab and I just unchecked the Crossfade Playback option.

6. Syncing three iPods

I talked earlier that I combined my libraries for my three iPods, and syncing these iPods seemed like such a hassle when I first started. The way I sync my iPods is simple, I created three playlists, one for my 30 GB iPod, on for my 2 GB Nano, and one for my 20 GB 4th Generation iPod. Again in the Preferences section, under iPod you can choose to sync only certain playlists. This option is perfect for those only wanting to sync certain music to certain iPods.

7. Smart Playlists make life easier

When I first found out about Smart Playlists I was kicking myself for manually creating playlists. Smart Playlists can be found under File and clicking Smart Playlists you can create Playlists based on a set of parameters, such as artists, top rated, category play count, etc. It is amazing and I have set up tons of Smart Playlists.

8. Cut down on songs

My bragging rights tell me that the more songs I have the cooler I am, but my common sense tells me to get rid of the duplicates, so doing that is not tough in iTunes. You can view your duplicate songs by going to File > View Duplicate Songs. This will show a list of all the songs you have 2 or more of, and you can begin to clean them up.

9. The Browser

Advanced iTunes users absolutely need a way to find their thousands of songs easier than searching or scrolling through the list. By enabling the Browser users you can scroll by Genre, Artist and Album, much like on an iPod.

10. To share or not to share

I have enabled sharing on my iTunes library before and really liked it and also really hated it. My brother and I shared our libraries for a long time, but I began to notice the speed of my computer (on a PC) slow down, I found out that more people were connected to my library, since the password was not enabled, and they were using programs like MyTunes to download my content. Sharing is good, especially on a college campus, but if you want to share I recommend using a password.

iTunes can really be a simple application or customized for a better performance. Heavy users of iTunes can benefit from it’s numerous options.

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