There are a handful of music streaming apps that are free and offer premium subscriptions, but if you are a loyal Apple user, chances are you prefer streaming your music on your iPhone 6, iPad, Macbook or Mac desktop from iTunes.
Whether you are the type to make the occasional playlist for a jog, car ride or for getting ready for a night out, you can easily master the ins and outs of Apple's music streaming service.
Here are the top nine iTunes tips and tricks you can use to maximize your music experience.
Bring Back The Sidebar
If you are an iTunes user, you may have noticed that the recent iTunes updates continue to keep the sidebar hidden. To show all your playlists in the sidebar, put your curser to the right of the Playlist title and click on Show, and all of your playlist will show up. Similarly, click on Hide to make them disappear.
Create A Smart Playlist
Because creating new playlists all the time can be time consuming if you have a large library, you might just opt for the shuffle option when listening to your music. But creating new playlist is quick and easy with the Smart Playlist option. Go to File > New > Smart Playlist and customize the type of playlist you want. Set the playlist to add songs by artist, genre, purchased, year, etc., or select "last skipped" and "does not contain" to eliminate these songs.
You can limit the amount of songs you want selected at random, by genre, by artist, most reentry played, most recently added, etc. Make sure live updating is checked so that the playlist will automatically make the adjustments needed.
Queue Your Songs
If you don't want to go the playlist route, you can still queue up your songs so you can hear what you want to play next without searching and skipping tracks. To access the Up Next feature, hit control, click on the song you want to play and select Add to Up Next. The track automatically will be added to the queue. You can view what is coming Up Next by clicking on the three dot icon at the top of your iTunes window where the current song is being played.
| TIP! Delete a song from a playlist by using SHIFT + DEL on Windows or OPTION + DEL on Mac. |
Home Sharing
Created the best road trip playlist and want to share it with your roommate? You can do this by using the Home Sharing feature, which allows you to steam music and movies on multiple computers in your home on the same WiFi connection. Go to File > Home Sharing and enter your Apple ID and password. You can use home sharing on up to five computers. Don't worry, your libraries stay separate.
Family Sharing
Similarly, you can share your music, movies and apps using the Family Sharing feature on iOS 8. Go to System Preferences on your Mac and click iCloud > Set up Family, following the setup directions. You can share your content with up to six family members by adding their Apple IDs.
| TIP! Use the MiniPlayer by clicking SHIFT + CMD+ M or Window > Switch to MiniPlayer. |
Stream Music On Apple TV
You might turn on iTunes when cleaning the house, but who wants to move their laptop from room to room? You also may use your phone to play iTunes during your party, but what if you don't have speakers or want to snap some photos? You can actually play music straight from your Apple TV or other AirPlay devices. To stream your music on your Apple TV, make sure your computer and Apple TV are both connected to the same Wi-Fi network and open iTunes. Then click on the icon that has a triangle over a screen located on the left of the iTunes window. Select your device from the list and play.
Make A Ringtone
Instead of buying ringtones from the iTunes Store, you can make your own from the songs already in your library. Right click on your song, then Get info and select Options. Uncheck the start time and make sure the duration of the ringtone is less than 30 seconds, and hit OK. To set your ringtone, right click on the song again and select Create AAC Version.
The song will now appear twice, so click on the new one and hit Show in Finder for Mac or Show in Windows Explorer for Windows. Then save it as a .M4R. You will then have to delete the file from iTunes, putting in the trash and drag and drop the .M4R file into iTunes. Sync your phone and then assign it as ringtone through your phone.
Get Album Art
Those blank, grey album art titles are boring. You can add album artwork to your tracks by right clicking on an album and selecting Get Album Artwork. While this won't work for all albums, iTunes will be able to find images for most of them.
Remove Dead Tracks
Sometimes iTunes files become inaccessible and will come up with the broken ("!") icon, so the song won't play. Mac users can remove these dead or broken tracks easily by using AppleScripts which already comes on Mac computers. You can also search for Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes to remove these tracks as well. Simply hit Run > Super Remove Dead Tracks and the script will scan your library and remove the songs that can't be played.
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