How To Skip Certain Songs When Shuffling In iTunes

December 23, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Many people like to listen to their iTunes library in Shuffle mode, myself included. However, there may be certain songs that you don’t wish to hear as part of your shuffle list. For instance, you might not necessarily want to listen to your Christmas songs in August or you may have other music that you only want to listen to on special occasions.

Luckily, you can easily exclude songs from your Shuffle list from the Get Info dialog box in iTunes.

Quick Guide: Exclude Songs from iTunes Shuffle List

Select all of the songs that you wish to exclude.
Select File ➪ Get Info from the menu.
Or
Right-click the File List and choose Get Info from the contextual menu.
Or
Press the ⌘ + I keyboard shortcut.
Click the Edit Items button when asked if you want to edit information for multiple items.
Click the Options tab on top of the Get Info window.
Click the checkbox next to Skip when Shuffling.
Click OK.

Now those songs will no longer play when you shuffle your main playlist. This trick will work for any playlist.

Never Pay Full Price for an iTunes Gift Card

December 16, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Itunes gift card image

If you ever purchase apps, music or books from the iTunes app store or the Mac app store, you might be interested in knowing that oftentimes, you can find discounted deals on iTunes Gift Cards. For instance, right now, Staples is offering an 18% discount on a $50 iTunes card. This year on Black Friday, you could have purchased a $100 iTunes card from eBay for only $75. That’s $25 in free money.

Once you’ve purchased your gift card, you can then add the credits to your account using your AppleID. As far as I know, there isn’t any limit as to how much money in credits you can add.

To redeem your gift card, log in to iTunes with your AppleID, click your AppleID on top of the iTunes screen and then click Redeem. You can either type in the code manually or use your computer’s camera to scan in the code. The credits are automatically added to your account balance.

Itunes redeem gift card image

So how do you find out about these deals? One method is to do a Web search every few days for “iTunes Gift Card Discount” or “iTunes Gift Card Deal”. I typically find gift cards on sale from various retailers at least 4 times a month. If you have a Twitter account, you’ll want to follow @itunescarddeals as they regularly tweet about discount iTunes Gift Card deals.

Vox – Another Excellent iTunes Alternative

October 30, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

The recent release of iTunes 12 was followed by a good amount of grumbling from users about how difficult the new interface is and how many more clicks it takes to perform tasks. In light of this, we are going to continue our discussion on alternatives to iTunes.

Vox, put out by a company called Coppertino, is another excellent alternative to iTunes and has quickly become one of my favorites. Though its interface may at first appear simplistic and minimalistic, don’t be fooled. There’s plenty of power behind this impressive application.

Music Formats

What’s powerful about Vox is its ability to play your music, no matter what the format. Vox can play music in FLAC, MP3, AAC, AIF, WAV, ALAC and more. No more needing to convert music files because they don’t play in your music play application.

Playlists

But what if you don’t use iTunes? No problem. Vox allows you to add music from your computer’s hard drive or from an external drive to playlists. To do so, click the Playlist icon, click the + symbol and then navigate to the folder that contains the music you wish to add. You can also simply drag and drop folders directly onto the playlist window.

Vox playlist screenshot

To save a playlist to reuse another time, select File > Save Playlist from the menu. Use the File > Open Playlist command to load a saved playlist.

What about iTunes?

The Collections tab (under the first Music icon) lists all of your playlists from iTunes – and includes your Smart Playlists as well. You can either scroll through the list to find the playlist you want or use the Search bar on top of the window. The Search bar is also excellent for finding music, whether it be in a personal playlist or in iTunes.

Speaking of iTunes, under the iTunes icon you can find all of your music listed by album. This can come in handy for finding and playing specific albums.

Vox itunes album screenshot

You can see what music is next to be played by clicking on the Queue icon on top of the screen. All upcoming songs are displayed as a list.

SoundCloud Integration

If you’re a fan of SoundCloud, then you should be delighted to know that you can access your favorite SoundCloud music from within the Vox application. Click the SoundCloud icon and your SoundCloud stream is displayed in the window. You can add SoundCloud songs to playlists or even to a collection by right-clicking in the SoundCloud window and choosing your desired options.

Vox SoundCloud integration screenshot

You can add your SoundCloud account from Vox Preferences window. If you have a Last.FM account, you can additionally enable Last.FM scrobbling.

Easy to Use Controls

The controls are visible on top of the Vox window and consist of a standard control set – Stop/Play, Previous Song, Next Song and Search. To minimize the Vox window, click the … icon. You can control the Vox player from the main interface, from the Dock contextual menu or from the main menu controls.

Vox minimized window

From the main window, click on the Equalizer icon to display VOX’s smart equalizer, which contains many built-in presets.

Vox equalizer screenshot

You can further modify the controls from the Vox Preferences window. Here, you can set global hotkeys for each of the controls listed above, as well as increasing or decreasing the volume.

Vox controls preferences

Preferences Galore

The real power of this application lies within the ability to customize it and control its behavior. From the Preferences window (Vox ➪ Preferences), you can modify the Balance, Volume Limit, Crossfading, set playlist options and iTunes preferences, choose output devices, autoload songs from a “watched” folder and much, much more.

Verdict

If you’re looking for simple yet powerful alternative to iTunes, Vox is definitely a worth contender. When I’m not streaming from Spotify, I’m using either Vox or Ecoute as my go-to application for playing music from my iTunes library.

Vox is FREE in the App Store

Manage your iTunes Library with Doug’s AppleScripts!

October 16, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Given that we’ve been talking about iTunes and managing our music recently, I figured that it’d be worth mentioning an excellent site online called Doug’s Scripts which at the moment contains 455 scripts that can help you to manage your digital iTunes music collection.

With these scripts, you can perform such actions as:

Manage tracks
Manage song info
Manage artwork
Control iTunes
Manage song files
Control iTunes
Modify tags
Manage smart playlists
Convert tracks
And much, much more….

Given that I purchase music from a variety of sources, I often copy songs over to my iTunes folder but then forget to bring it into iTunes. One of Doug’s nifty little scripts is called Music Folder Files Not Added which will display any files, along with their path, in your designated “iTunes Media” folder which are not in iTunes’ track library. You can then choose to add the files to iTunes, move them to the trash or export the list to a text file.

Music Folder Files Not Added script image

A few posts ago, we discussed how to create a playlist that displays all iTunes files that are not in any user-defined playlists. If you have a lot of playlists, then this task can be more than a tad tedious. You guessed it – Doug’s Scripts site has a script for that’s titled Not In Any Playlist. This will scan iTunes for tracks that are not assigned to any user-created playlists and display them. Options include exporting the list as a text file, ignoring Smart playlists, ignoring non-Music tracks, and copying selected tracks to a an iTunes playlist.

Not In Any Playlist script image

If you use iTunes and haven’t yet visited Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes site, then you’ll want to pay it a visit. There are tons of goodies here that’ll make managing your iTunes libraries easier – and fun!

You can find Doug’s AppleScripts site at: http://dougscripts.com/itunes

Turn off iTunes Auto-Renew Subscriptions

October 13, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Apple makes signing up for iOS magazine subscriptions easy but figuring out how to cancel our manage your subscriptions can be somewhat challenging, as it is not readily obvious.

Many subscriptions are automatically placed on Auto-Renew, which means your credit card will automatically be charged after a specified period of time. If you wish to change a subscription from yearly to monthly, or if you want to cancel your subscription altogether , you can do so both from the Mac or from your iOS device.

To Turn off Auto-Renew from your Mac

Launch iTunes.
If you are not automatically signed in to your account, choose Store ➪ Sign In from the iTunes menu.
Choose Store ➪ View Account from the menu.
When prompted, enter in your Apple ID and password.
Under the Settings area, click the Manage link across from the word Subscriptions.
Click Edit next to the subscription you want to modify.
Click the Off button in the Auto-Renewal area.

To Turn off Auto-Renew from your iOS Device

Tap the App Store icon.
Click Featured on the bottom of the screen.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap your Apple ID.
Tap View Apple ID.
Enter in your password.
Under the Subscriptions area, tab Manage.
Tap the subscription you wish to modify.
To turn off auto-renewal, tap the Auto-Renewal button so that it displays OFF.
Tap Turn Off when prompted.

Looking for an alternative to iTunes? Give Ecoute a try!

October 10, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Ecoute app screenshot

Today we continue our discussion of music except this time, we’re not going to look at iTunes but rather at an iTunes alternative. Some people find iTunes cumbersome, confusing and not very user friendly. Lucklily, there are alternatives.

One of these such alternatives is Ecoute, a standalone player that brings in music, movies, tv shows and even podcasts from your iTunes library, all in an intuitive minimalist interface. What surprised me, was that Ecoute even brought in my iTunes Smart Playlists, something which many other iTunes alternatives don’t do.

Ecoute doesn’t import your library, but rather accesses it – so any changes to your iTunes library is reflected in Ecoute the next time you open it – and vice-versa.

Once Ecoute is open, you then can sort your album display by Name, Rating or Release Date from the View menu. You can also sort artists by Name or Rating. Songs are automatically sorted ascending, in alphabetical order.

Ecoute sort albums

Ecoute has a Artwork View which you can toggle by pressing the ⌘T keystroke combination. Press F5 to quickly show or hide Ecoute. You can also view the next several songs in the queue by clicking the queue icon on the lower right-hand corner of the Ecoute window.

Ecoute queue icon

I find searching for songs in iTune to be unnecessairly complicated so I was delighted to discover how easy it is to search for files in Ecoute. Press the ⌘F keystroke combination and then type in your search term in the Search box. Items matching your search are automatically displayed as in the right pane as you type. You can also filter the display of your library items by using the relevant keystroke combination: ⌃ 1 for Music, ⌃ 2 for Podcasts, ⌃ 3 for Movies or ⌃ 4 TV Shows.

Another feature that is really like is the ability to customize shortcuts to control Ecoute. From the Preferences pane, you can customize shortcuts such as Play/Pause, Next Track or Previous Track, Increase or Decrease Music Volume, Increase or Decrease Rating, Shuffle and more. Many controls are also available to you from the Dock – right-click the Ecoute icon to access a mini control pop-up menu.

Ecoute configure shortcuts

Ecoute is a FREE application and is available from the Pixiapps website at http://pixiapps.com/ecouteosx/. There is also an iOS version available. This has become my go-to music app to play songs from my iTunes library.

Display iTunes Songs That Are Not In Any Playlist

October 9, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Playlist itunes rule displays songs with no playlist screenshot

Awhile back, a friend of mine ripped all of his music CD’s and imported them into iTunes so he could listen to his music on his new iPhone. He then took on the arduous task of adding his songs to playlists. In the process, he was fearful that he may have neglected to add some songs so asked me if there was a quick way to display any songs that were not in an exisiting playlist.

The answer is yes, there is a way – although it may not be so quick, depending on the number of playlists you have. To do so, you will need to create a Smart playlist that includes a rule for each one of your playlists.

Quick Guide: Display iTunes Songs That Are Not In A Playlist

Select File ➪ New ➪ Smart Playlist… from the menu or use the ⌥ ⌘ N keystroke combination.
Click the first drop-down list and select Playlist.
Click the second drop-down list and choose Is Not.
Click the third drop-down list and choose any one of the playlists that you’ve created.
Click the + symbol to add a new row.
Repeat steps 2-5 for every one of your playlists. If you have other media such as movies or podcasts in iTunes, then you will need to add a rule that designates that Media Kind ➪ Is Not ➪ Podcast (or Movie, Book, Audiobook, Voice Memo, etc.)

Transfer your iTunes Library from your iPhone or iPod to your Mac

August 15, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Senuti logo

Many folks keep their entire iTunes music library on their iPhones or iPads (if you’re fortunate enough not to have a 100 gig library of music like some of us have). But what happens if your Mac’s hard drive fails and you lose your entire music library?

If you do not have a recent backup of your library, there is a third-party program which will copy all of the music from your iPod or iPhone to your computer. It’s called Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards) and it will not only restore your music, but also your playlists and videos. You can choose to restore your entire library with just one step or you can selectively transfer only specific playlists or individual songs.

The program is available at: https://www.fadingred.com/senuti/ and will set you back $18.99 – but it’s a lot cheaper than replacing your entire music library.

Switch Media Types in iTunes on your Mac using Keyboard Shortcuts

July 1, 2014 by Roger Hyttinen

Itunes mail

Awhile back, I mentioned some keyboard shortcuts for navigating the Get Info box in iTunes. In addition to the Get Info box, you can also navigate the main iTunes window using keyboard shortcuts to move from one media type to another.

Note however, that you can use a shortcut to jump to an item only if that item is enabled in the General pane of your iTunes preferences. To enable an item, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu and click the checkbox next to any item that you wan to enable.

Itunes preferences

The shortcuts are as follows:

Cmd + 1 = Music
Cmd + 2 = Movies
Cmd + 3 = TV Shows
Cmd + 4 = Podcasts
Cmd + 5 = iTunes U
Cmd + 6 = AudioBooks
Cmd + 7 = Apps

If you are using Mavericks, you might wonder: where’s my Books? Any books that you have purchased from the iTunes store have been moved to the iBooks app.

Roger Talks Tech

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