Tips

Finding just what you are looking for

When you’re searching for music, iTunes looks through your entire library and checks the Artist, Album, and Song Name. You can narrow your search by with the buttons that appear in the Search Bar, just below Search when you do a search. For example, if you know you’re looking for an audiobook, simply click the Audiobooks button to instantly narrow your search to audiobooks only. Also, if you’re searching for a particular artist, album, or song name, you can search in only those by just clicking the Artist, Album, or Name button.

Rating a song

Rating your songs can help you quickly find your favorites. If the rating column is displayed you can quickly rate your music by clicking next to the song in the My Rating column. You can also rate a song by selecting it, and then going to the File menu, choosing My Rating, and then selecting the rating you want. On your Mac, you can also rate a song from the Dock by holding the Control key, clicking the iTunes icon in the Dock, selecting My Rating, and then selecting a rating.

Making other columns visible

iTunes keeps information about each song you have in your library. Most of the time you’ll probably only need to view song names, artist, and album names, but sometimes you might want to be able to view song length or the year the song was released. With iTunes you can display as much or as little information as you want. Simply right-click (or on a Mac, hold the Control key and click) one of the column headers. You can also go to the Edit menu and choose View Options. Choose which columns to display by checking the ones you want.

Rearranging columns

If you want to rearrange the columns in iTunes to see specific information about your music quickly, just drag the column to the place you want. Rearranging columns is a great way to quickly view your ratings for songs right next to the song name, for example. The only column you can’t move is the song name.

Changing column widths to see song information

If there’s not enough room in a column to display the complete song or artist name, for example, you can change the width of the column in the iTunes window. When you move the pointer over the lines that separate the columns, the pointer changes. You can drag the column border to the right to enlarge the column or to the left to narrow it. If you need to see more detail about a song, just right-click (or on a Mac, Control-click) a song and select Get Info. You can also choose Get Info from the File menu.

Finding a song file on your computer

If you want to locate the song file of any song in your library simply right-click (or on a Mac, Control-click) the song. From the menu that appears, choose Show Song File. You can also choose Show Song File from the File menu. On a PC, your file will be selected in Windows Explorer. On a Mac, a Finder window will open with the song file selected. With the file selected you can copy the file to an external hard disk to back up the file.

Quickly locate the song currently playing

If you want to know what the currently playing song in a playlist is, look for a small speaker icon next to the title of the song. If you’re elsewhere in iTunes and want to quickly jump to the currently playing song, click the snapback icon in the iTunes display area.

How much music is in your iTunes library?

As you add music to your iTunes library, you may become curious about how much music is in your collection. With Library selected in the Source list, you can see the total number of songs, their combined duration, and the amount of space they occupy on your computer at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Steps

Find songs in your music library

1. Select Library in the Source list.
2. Click the Browse button in the upper-right corner of the iTunes window.
3. Select an artist in the Artist list. Albums displayed to the right are albums by the selected artist.
4. Click the Browse button to close the browser and return to your iTunes library.
5. Type a word (or words) in the Search field in the upper right corner of the iTunes window to quickly find songs, artists, or albums that match your entry. Notice how the songs displayed in the iTunes window update as you type more letters in the Search field.
6. Narrow your search by song type with the buttons in the Search Bar, just above your list of songs. You can also choose to choose to search by artist, album, or song name.
7. To return to the iTunes window and display all the music in your library, click the icon on the right of the Search field.