10 Common iTunes Keyboard Shortcuts

Most applications let you interact with and control them in several ways: by clicking on-screen buttons, choosing menu items, and using your keyboard. But first of all, you need to remember them, which will tax your already heavy memory. But keyboard shortcuts can be the fastest way to perform actions, as long as you can remember them. Here are 10 most commonly used keyboard shortcuts that can save you time as you work with iTunes.

1. Space bar ： Play/Pause

You may have been already using this shortcut. Whenever you highlight a song, movie, TV show, audiobook, or podcast, simply hit Space bar to play and hit again to pause. This is probably the most practical iTunes keyboard shortcut.

2. Command-L：Quick Back

If you’re like me, you may sometimes be listening to music, then want to look around in your iTunes library, or browse the iTunes Store. If you want to get back to the currently playing track, you may need to click a lot to find where you were; or you can just press Command-L. iTunes will take you to the item in the location where you started playing it: your library, a playlist, iTunes DJ, or a shared library.

3. Command-B ：  Show/Hide Column Browser

iTunes Column Browser help you quickly find songs you want by Genres, Artists, Albums, Composers and Groupings. By pressing Command-B, you could get it displayed on Top or on Left. To make the settings, go to View > Column Browser submenu. This feature is a great way to view the contents of your libraries or playlists.

4. Command-I ：Get Information

When you rip new files, or add files you’ve obtained in digital form, you may need to edit their tags. Command-I brings up the info window for either single or multiple tracks, depending on whether you’ve selected one file or many.

5. Command-Shift-M : Mini Player Switch

What’s iTunes Mini Player? It’s a small player window that gives you access to basic iTunes controls like play/pause, volume, preview/next sound track, etc. Through the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-M, you can easily switch between Mini Player and Full-size windows. The equivalent menu item locates at View > Switch to Mini Player. To make Mini Player always visible, check the option “Keep Mini Player on top of all other windows” in File > Preferences > Advanced tab. In Mini Player or even video playback windows, simply press Command-F to open full screen.

6.Command-T : Show/Hide Visualizer

This shortcut brings up the iTunes visualizer, which gives you trippy visuals while you listen to your music. You may not want to use this all the time, but it can be fun for parties.

7.Command-P and Command-N : Previous and Next

As you are editing tag information, you have the below window open for individual tracks, where you can go to Preview or Next track without closing the current windows. Then it’s even more convenient to change to Previous or Next track by keyboard shortcut so that your hand can keep on the keyboard.

8. Command-Option-F  : Active Search Field

Immediately active the search field and start typing words to search the music you want. But this iTunes keyboard shortcut is a little hard to press. Hopeful it will change to Command-F.

9.Command-Option-3, Command-Option-4, Command-Option-5 and Command-Option-6

These are the four shortcuts that let you switch among the different views in the iTunes window: List, Album List, Grid, and Cover Flow.

10. Command-Shift-N

If you’ve selected a bunch of tracks, and want to make a new playlist with those tracks, just press this shortcut combo. The playlist gets added to your sidebar, and the name is highlighted so you can change it. You can do this with tracks that are contiguous (sequential), or non-contiguous; for the latter, click on one track, then hold down the Command key, and click on others to select them.

Recommend: The best iTunes Alternative

Undoubtedly， iTunes is a powerful iOS Manager and Music app, which always is the first choice for iPhone, iPad and iPod users . However, sometimes, iTunes just drive you nuts while meeting some routine works. For example： iTunes would not backup movies, songs, podcasts and some apps (bulit-in apps are available) on your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Therefore it is hard for iOS users to transfer audio files and videos from iDevice to computer or Mac.  Besides, although iTunes allows you to backup many kinds of data,  you are unable to preview and select your backups.

Therefore, why not turn to a 3-party app? Syncios iOS Manager is the most popular iTunes alternative on the market, trusted by millions. With this iPhone/iPad/iPod Manager , you can preview and transfer more than 12 types of data between PC and iDevices selectively or in batches, such as music, videos, photos, apps, ebooks, contacts, and more. What’s more, it offer more free services than iTunes， such as free online videos & audio downloading， ringtone maker，ideos & audio converter，etc.