iTunes Interface Tour

In this lesson for iTunes on the Mac, we look at the interface and how we get around iTunes on the Mac.

Media Kind
With iTunes, we can manage our music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks. To switch between these different media kinds, you select the drop-down in the upper left corner of the interface. When you do this, you’ll see all the respective media types, such as music or movies.

Sidebar
The sidebar shows all the categories and playlists for your selected media kind. These categories the sidebar shows will change depending on the media kind you are viewing. It also only shows when you are looking at your library. As an example, if you are in the iTunes store, you will not see the sidebar. To hide the sidebar, go up to View in the Menu Bar and select Hide Sidebar. To show it again, go back up to View and select Show Sidebar.

Playing Media
When you are looking at your media, as an example albums, when you click on an album, you’ll see all the tracks for that album below it. To play the album, you’ll see a Play button in the album artwork. To play a track, click on the Play button next to the track. This works similar to other media types, If you are looking at podcasts, you’ll see all the episodes below the podcast. Click on the play button next to the episode title to play that episode.

Tip: If you cannot play an album, check to see if the tracks are gray. If so, go to Songs in your sidebar and make sure they are ‘checked’ in the Checkbox.

View Options
To change the view of what you are looking at, go to View in the menu bar. When you click on View, you’ll see a number of options for viewing your media in iTunes including if you want to display it in a grid or list. To view more options, go back to View int he menu bar and select Show View Options. A window will open with more options to view your media.

Controls
In the toolbar at the top of the iTunes interface, you’ll find your controls on the left side. These controls include Previous, Play, Next, and Volume.

Display
The Display is located in the center of the toolbar for iTunes and includes the title of what is playing as well as the playhead. You can click on the playhead to move it to a new position. You will also see Shuffle and repeat options to the left and right of the display. If you click on the cover art to the left of the display, iTunes will switch to its Mini-Player interface, which is a smaller interface.

Ellipsis or Three Dots
Thought the interface you will see three dots (ellipsis). These dots indicate that you can do more. When you click on them, you’ll get a pop-up menu with more controls including adding your selection to a playlist, loving a selection, viewing information about what is selected, and more.

What’s Next, History, Lyrics
To the right of the display, you will see three horizontal lines. When you click on the lines, you’ll get a pop-up that shows what is going to be played next, the history of what’s been played, and lyrics to what is currently being played if it is music.

Search
On the very right side of the iTunes, the interface is where you can search your media. When you search for something, you can select if you want to search your library, which is all your own media, or if you’re going to search the iTunes Store. If you are a subscriber of Apple Music, the iTunes Store option is replaced with Apple Music.

See this Lesson in Action
If you want to see this lesson in action, take a look at the video above.

Lesson tags: Mac Tutorials
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