11 Hidden Apple Music Features Every User Should Know About
Apple Music (formerly iTunes) is a beast of a music management app for macOS and Windows, and it’s changed and evolved so much since its launch in 2001 that you may not have encountered everything the software has to offer. It has grown almost as quickly as the digital music industry.
Whether you use Apple Music as your default audio player or are wondering if it’s worth making the switch, these lesser-known features should give you a better idea of what the app is capable of—beyond the basics of streaming music from the Internet. and playback of local files.
(The guide below describes the features as they exist in Apple Music for macOS. All of the same features are available in the Windows version, but may not be in the same location or menu.)
Create a radio station based on your favorite song.
If you have a track you particularly like on Apple Music, you can create an entire radio mix around it if you subscribe to the Apple Music streaming service. Once you’ve selected a specific song in the app, open the Song menu and select Create Station . It’s a really good way to discover new artists similar to your favorites.
Switch to mini player
Apple Music comes with a useful mini player. To access it, open the Window menu and select Mini Player to see it (click and drag to move it). Under Music > Settings > More, you can find a checkbox to keep it on top of other program windows in macOS so you always have access to key playback controls.
Cut out intros and endings
You can set timestamps for individual songs in Apple Music, which tell the app where to start and stop playback each time the song is played on any device—so you can cut a long intro or outro, for example. Right-click the track, then select Get Info and go to the Options tab, where you’ll find the Start and Stop fields. Click OK to confirm.
Change your recommendations
Not every track in your library is going to be a five-star anthem, and you don’t necessarily want the tracks you like less to influence the recommendations you see in Apple Music, even if you save the tracks themselves. To make a song have less influence on your music recommendations, right-click it and select Suggest Less .
Remove duplicates
You don’t want your playlists and your Mac’s storage to be unnecessarily cluttered with duplicate files, which can be a problem for both local and streaming music. Open the File menu, then choose Library and Show Duplicate Items . After this, you can go through all the tracks in your library several times and delete extra copies that you don’t need.
Switch to lossless audio
Apple Music’s streaming service now supports lossless audio—up to 24-bit/192kHz quality across the entire catalog—and you can switch to higher-resolution audio if you don’t mind the additional bandwidth and file download requirements. sizes. To turn lossless audio on or off in an app, go to Music > Settings > Playback .
Add comments to tracks
You can add comments to any track in your library. Simply right-click on the song, then select Get Details and go to the Details tab. You can use the comments field to tag songs the way you like—as instrumentals, favorite songs, upbeat songs, or golden oldies—then set up smart playlists to select tracks using the comment data.
Normalize volume
It can be annoying when different songs are recorded at different volume levels, leaving you constantly searching for the volume slider when starting a new track. To prevent this from happening, open the Music menu, select Settings , then go to the Playback tab and turn on Sound Check . Apple Music then automatically makes the changes.
Skip songs when shuffling
Many of us turn to the shuffle feature to avoid having to manually queue albums and songs, but not all songs are suitable for shuffled selection—you might want to cut out those long post-rock tracks or spoken word skits, for example. To do this, right-click the song, then select Get Info . On the Options tab, select the Skip on shuffling checkbox, then click OK .
Create collaborative playlists
This is a new feature that may have escaped your notice : you can now collaborate on playlists with other people on Apple Music, which is ideal for parties or travel, for example. When your playlist appears on screen, click the Invite People button on the right (it’s the head and shoulders icon), then select Start Collaboration to select your collaborators.
Customize your layout
Apple Music offers more flexibility in terms of layout than you might imagine. If a playlist is displayed on the screen, you can open the View menu and select different groups of tracks (including Songs and Albums ). You can also choose how you want to sort and filter the tracks on the screen (for example, by artist name or number of plays).