HOW I FINALLY TOOK CONTROL OF MY ITUNES LIBRARY

IF YOU'VE BEEN HOARDING MUSIC FOR YEARS, you know how messy iTunes can get. My external hard drive has over 20,000 tracks—a mix of CDs I ripped and traded with friends ages ago. But only a fraction of those tracks ever made it into iTunes, along with some new ones I bought directly from the iTunes Store. And what a mess it all was! Duplicates, weirdly named songs, low-res album covers, messy (or missing) metadata—opening iTunes felt more like a chore than a joy.

So I decided to do the unthinkable: delete everything in iTunes and start fresh. (Don't worry—my external hard drive stayed untouched.)

Step 1: Delete Everything in iTunes

Yes, I nuked every single track, playlist, and duplicate that had made its way into iTunes. Brutal, but liberating.

Then I selectively reinstalled only the artists and albums I actually missed listening to. Not everything I own—just the stuff that still matters to me. At least for now.

Step 2: Duplicates, Be Gone

With a fresh library, it was finally time to deal with duplicates. Many songs existed in both MP3 and M4A formats. I decided to keep the M4As—better quality, smaller files—and ditch the redundant MP3s. Browsing my library became faster, cleaner, and less confusing.

Step 3: Naming and Genre Overhaul

Next up: metadata. I standardized everything:

• Proper title capitalization (fixing messy prepositions and random capitalization)
• Consistent artist and album names
• Complete, organized genre tags

It was tedious, but now searching or browsing makes sense—no more typo errors, "Track 01" disasters, or mystery albums.

Step 4: Album Art That Doesn't Hurt Your Eyes

Scrolling through iTunes used to be visually painful—low-res, blurry (or missing) covers everywhere. I replaced them with high-res versions whenever possible.

For albums with no hi-res art, I got creative and designed a few myself. Now my library looks as good as it sounds. Here are just a few of the enhancements:

Album art I created from vector graphics, mirror-tiled and superimposed with the matching title.

Album art I created from a Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes concert snapshot, overlaid with title overlay to replace the original CD cover.

Album art I created from a snapshot of Calvin Harris DJ-ing, enhanced with motion blur effects and title overlay to replace the original CD cover.

Album art I created for my friend Klaas' mixtape back in the early 2000s, using a stylized mirror collage of our old photograph and superimposed with the matching title.

Step 5: The "Wait! Where Did That Go?" Moment

Rebuilding my library meant digging up tracks I'd totally forgotten—and noticing some were just... gone. Like the entire Moon Music album by Coldplay, which vanished after I switched to my iPhone 17 Pro Max. I figured iTunes would still have them locally if I hadn't copied them to my external drive—wrong. (Thankfully, I was eventually able to re-download many of my iTunes Store purchases for free.)

It was frustrating, but it reminded me to focus on the music I can control. My iTunes library is now smaller, curated, and intentional—even if my full external collection is still massive.

Step 6: A Library That Grows With Me

I'm far from done, of course—and honestly, I never will be. I add a little every day: rediscovering forgotten tracks, installing new favorites, and fixing metadata or album art along the way.

It's become less about perfection and more about building a library that truly reflects what I enjoy listening to (and looking at) right now. Every time I open iTunes, I stumble on something I didn't expect but end up liking anyway—and that makes the effort feel completely worthwhile.

The Result

Now my iTunes library (so far):

• Is clean, curated, and easy to navigate
• Has no duplicates, with MP3 copies replaced with M4As
• Uses standardized naming and complete genre tags
• Has no typo errors, double spaces, misspellings, incorrect characters
• Features crisp, hi-res album art, including some that I designed myself

Even though iTunes only contains a fraction of my 20,000+ track collection, every time I open it, it's a joy to browse.

Lessons Learned

• Don't be afraid to start fresh if your library is a mess.
• Only keep what you actually listen to at the moment—the rest just clutters things. You can always re-add later.
• Clean up duplicates and pick the best-quality files.
• Metadata matters. Correct titles, artists, composers and genres save headaches.
• Album art isn't just decoration—it makes your library feel alive.
• Back up your purchases before switching devices—some tracks might disappear unexpectedly.
• Your library is never "finished." Add, tweak, refresh, and grow it over time.

Starting over in iTunes was a little scary—and as it turned out, a lot of work—but the end result made me fall back in love with my entire music collection, and listening to music felt smooth and perfect again. That feeling, honestly, is absolutely priceless. (APJ)