Nine Steps to Clean iTunes
ITunes provides an easy way to access and play your music, as well as video files and audio books, no matter how scattered the files might be on your hard drive. However, as your collection grows, your iTunes library can become full of duplicates, references to files that have been deleted or moved on your hard drive, and mislabeled or wrongly categorized files. If your messy library is starting to cause you frustration, take a few moments to clean it up.
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Preparation
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Before you make any changes to your iTunes library, create a backup in case something goes wrong or you need to start from scratch. To do this, click "File," hover over "Library" and click "Export Library..." in the menu that appears. Select a location where you want to save your library and the file name, then click "Save." This process creates an XML file containing information about your entire library, such as the file names and their locations on your hard drive. This backup of your library does not contain any of the actual audio and video files, and its size is relatively small.
Remove Nonexistent Files
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If you regularly rearrange music files on your hard disk, you may end up with entries in your iTunes library corresponding to files that no longer exist in that location. To identify these entries, create a new playlist by clicking "File" and "New Playlist." Give the playlist a name you will easily recognize, such as "All my music." Click "Music" in the menu on the left side of the iTunes window, press "Ctrl" and "A" to select the entirety of your library and drag the selected files to the playlist you just created. Click "File" and select "New Smart Playlist." Under the "Match the following rule" heading, select "Playlist" from the first drop-down menu, "is not" from the second drop-down menu and the playlist containing your whole library from the third one. Click "OK" to create a smart playlist that shows all the library entries without a corresponding file on your hard disk. Double-click an entry and click "Locate" to open a window that allows you to manually specify where the file has been moved, or select an entry and press "Delete" to remove it.
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Remove Duplicate Files
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Duplicate files are created if, for example, you accidentally import the same file into your library multiple times. To identify them, click on "File" and select "Display Duplicates." The resulting list contains all files that occur in your library more than once under the same song and artist name. Listen to each song to determine whether you want to keep only one or both of them. Once you have made your choice, select the songs you want to remove and press "Delete." Click "File" and select "Display All" to go back to showing your full library once you are done.
Remove Frequently Skipped Files
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When you listen to music using the "Shuffle" option, iTunes may pick a piece of music to which you don't want to listen. If you find yourself skipping particular files often, delete them from your library altogether. Click "View" and select "As Album List" to display a list of all individual songs in your library, then right-click on any category heading above the list of files and ensure "Skips" is checked. Click on the "Skips" category heading to sort your music collection by the amount of times you skipped each of them. Delete any files you want to get rid of by selecting them and pressing "Delete."
Remove Rarely Played Files
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Some of the entries in your iTunes library may be songs you listen to only very rarely or not at all. Deleting these files reduces the size of your library and make it easier to find the music you like. Click "View" and select "As Album List" to display a list of all individual songs in your library, then click on the "Plays" category heading twice to sort the list with the most infrequently played songs at the top. Delete any files you want to get rid of by selecting them and pressing "Delete."
Select Files to Be Played Only Manually
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Sometimes, you may want to avoid iTunes playing a specific song most of the time, either in Shuffle mode or when playing the album the song belongs to, but also want to keep it available in your library. To do this, locate these songs in your iTunes library and remove the check mark from the check box to the left of the title of each song. ITunes will only play these songs if you manually select them by double-clicking on them.
Label Albums and Songs
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Ensure your library is easy to navigate by adding basic information to each song. Click "View" and select "As List" to display an unsorted list of all music in your library. Click on the "Artist," "Album" and "Genre" category headings to locate any songs that are missing information and manually add it where necessary. To edit the information for a song, right-click on it and select "Get Info," then click the "Info" tab. You can also select multiple songs at a time by holding "Shift" while clicking on them, then right-click on any of them and select "Get Info" to edit the information for all of them at a time.
Add Album Artwork
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When you import music into your iTunes library from your CD collection or from other sources, the album artwork may be missing or wrong. This makes the album hard to identify at first glance from the album list, making your library confusing to navigate. Click "View" and select "As Grid" to display a list of all albums in your library. Right-click on the image identifying any album with missing or incorrect artwork and click "Get Album Artwork" to automatically obtain the artwork from the iTunes store. Click "Get Album Artwork" again if prompted.
If the album’s artwork remains unchanged or you receive a message stating that artwork for that album could not be found, add it manually. Find a picture you want to use as the album’s artwork, right-click on it and select "Copy," then switch to your iTunes window, right-click on the album in question and select "Get Info." Select the "Info" tab, right-click on the empty square under "Album Artwork" and click "Paste." Click "OK" and iTunes will use the image as the artwork for that album.
Create Playlists
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If you want to listen to songs from multiple albums in a row, or to use the Shuffle feature across specific albums rather than across your entire library, you can do so using playlists. There are two types of playlists: manually managed and smart. To create a manually managed playlist, click "File" in the top menu and click "New Playlist." Type in a name for your new playlist and press "Enter." Drag and drop files or whole albums into your playlist from your music library. To create a smart playlist, click "File" in the top menu and click "New Smart Playlist." Specify multiple rules to select the songs you want added into it -- for example, add all songs by a specific artist, all songs that you’ve played a specific amount of times or songs released in a certain year. Combine multiple rules to achieve any result you wish. Once you are done editing the rules for your playlist, click "OK" and iTunes creates a list of songs that match the rules you’ve specified.
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