Disable iTunes Autoplay After Importing a Song

If you're using a Mac, open Safari go to Preferences under the Safari menu. On the General tab, uncheck "Open safe files after downloading". Seems crazy but it works! This was also driving me crazy when I imported both music and videos.

wandyfromnew york,

I am not sure why you mention Safari when everyone is talking about iTunes.

When I download a PDF I want safari to open that. That has no relation to iTunes.

When you download a movie or an mp3 and safari opens that "safely", it opens iTunes. Becuase your default player is probably iTunes.

Everyone,

I have a MAC so I will only explain what is going on on a MAC OS.

When you import a file into iTunes (from the file menu) it won't play the movie/audio. The same happens when you drag and drop your files into iTunes window, which essentially means import).

When you drag your files to the iTunes icon (in the dock), you are telling iTunes to play the files! Basically you are draging the files to the iTunes Application, which will open iTunes and PLAY your files.

So in iTunes, the "import" function is when you drag files into the iTunes Library, or you click on file>Add to Library..., otherwise dragging the files to the iTunes App is telling iTunes "play" these files or this file and NOT import.

Hope this was clear.

Another example, when you drag a file to your VLC application (in the dock) that file will PLAY in VLC. When you drag it into the playlist it will add/import the file to the playlist.

Cheers!

BrennanBones - yes, it happens no matter how I import it. I should mention that I'm using Windows XP, not a Mac. The bug is probably much less aggravating on a Mac, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, problem SOLVED! After much trial and error over several days, I figured out that iTunes 10.3.1 is the last version that will not autoplay! It may have been a problem in older versions as well but I know on my computer, that's the most recent one that works.

Of course, it would be fantastic if you could actually use the controls to play music while it's importing but I guess that's a mighty tall order and I should be happy with what I got.

To downgrade (upgrade), first uninstall your iTunes using these instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1923. Then, use ByeTunes to clean up all the extra iTunes droppings this spoiled baby left all over your computer, which you can get here: http://remove-it.org/tools/byetunes. Then, get the older, better version of iTunes here: http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.php?old_itunes=82 .

After you install, make sure to tell it NOT to download the most recent version (which it will ask) and check the "Don't ask me again" box. Voila.

Again, this fix and the links above apply to iTunes for Windows. The process and exact version number may be different on a Mac.

The most consistent way I've found to solve this is to drop your files into the "Automatically add to iTunes folder."

How I do it on a Mac:

1. Navigate to Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/
2. Seconday click on "Automatically Add to iTunes"
3. Select "create alias." - this makes a shortcut, for those who didn't know
4. Click and drag the new shortcut you just made to your desktop or launchbar or somewhere else where it is more convenient for you.
5. Drag any new files that you want to add to iTunes onto that from now on, if you don't want them to autoplay.

Good luck!

I have the same problem. Also with movies. I add movie to iTunes not to watch it right there, cause I can do it in QuickTime without adding to iTunes. I add movie to iTunes to sync it to iPad/iPhone to watch later. And I get really anoyed with iTunes autoplaying every movie I add.

How can't Apple understand that we need the option to disable autoplay.

Ok, so this is super hack-ey, but I stumbled across this by accident.

If you leave iTunes' preferences open, iTunes it won't auto-play (because Importing will be temporarily suspended while the Preferences dialog is open).

However, once you close the iTunes Preferences dialog, all the items that had been downloading in the background will suddenly start importing themselves.

Of course auto-play starts at this point, but if you are queueing up a bunch of downloads, at least they won't all play one by one as they are downloaded...

I imagine if you were to batch drop a bunch of songs on iTunes, you could pop up the Preferences before the first track gets imported and get the same result.

Like I said, a hack, but it works...

I had been wondering the same thing. I get iTunes Season passes, but I put the episodes on an external harddrive afterwards. As my music still resides on the computer, but the movies/tv shows reside elsewhere, once I've moved the episodes to the external drive, I need to drag them back in iTunes for them to appear. Lately, I've had the same problem; they'd start playing automatically when I did that, which was annoying the heck out of me.

And I did notice that I had been doing something different when importing. Something that if I didn't do, it worked without autoplaying what I imported.

Tell me, those of you that have this problem, when you import music or videos into iTunes, do you drag and drop on the icon in the dock? If so, that might be the problem. When I dragged it to the dock, it started playing automatically. When I had iTunes open and dragged the songs/videos into the iTunes window itself, it didn't start playing automatically.

I have no idea why it does that, and if it'll work for any of you, but try dragging and dropping directly in iTunes instead of on it's dock icon.

I know I was getting extremely annoyed of having to stop the video every time just to import a few more and having to stop them all. Maybe this will save someone else from being annoyed about it.

what do you try to import that has it autoplay, and how do you import it when it does autoplay? I dragged a few songs on my Windows iTunes, and it didn't autoplay. (though I do have Windows 7 and not XP, if that can make a difference).

korifromsouthelgin, not everyone wants or can have their music collection in the itunes media folder. I have over 100gb of music spread across multiple folders and hard drives. The drive with itunes on it has only 3 gb free. Do you propose I rearrange my entire organizational structure around itunes?

My issue is even worse. I try to import a folder (which has 13000 tracks) and it starts playing one track, then skips to another after a second, and so on. Every 1-2 seconds IT SKIPS TO ANOTHER TRACK. This is beyond frustrating, it's unacceptible. It's like someone changing the channel over and over again for hours. I cannot even pause or stop it! I have to cancel the importing.

And it's not a bug, but an intentional problem. I did some research on this; prior to verion 8, itunes had an option in the Preferences menu to "Play songs while importing or converting", which you could uncheck. Now this is no longer optional. Worse yet, it's unresolved. There are literally dozens of unanswered discussions about this dating back to 2008, with thousands of readers. How do you think Apple could ignore such a large, obvious problem that thousands of users are complaining about, year after year after year? It's on purpose.

They want everyone to let itunes manage their music libraries. Putting all your music into one stupid folder just for itunes is apparently the only way to stop the glitch. Openness and transparency are for the competitors. Apple doesn't play that way.

It's not a conspiracy, just business. It could and would have been solved years ago if it was supposed to be.

itunesistotalgarbage, does it do it if you drag the folder to an open iTunes window, like I mentioned above? I don't keep my collection in the itunes media folder, but rather on an external drive, and so have to import back everything. But since I've been dragging to the iTunes window instead of the icon in the dock, I haven't had the problem. But I have to have an iTunes window open, and I have to drag the folder/files from finder to the open window for it to work. The minute I forget and drag it to the iTunes icon in the dock, I'm doomed for it to start playing automatically.

This worked really good for me.

I have a main folder on an external hardrive that holds all 400-something GB of the music I have in Itunes.

Assuming that you have a main folder for Itunes music, there should be a folder in there called "Automatically add to Itunes."

Whenever you download music from somewhere other than Itunes, just drag those files to that folder and they automatically get added to your Itunes library. And the best part, Itunes will NOT start playing those songs.

Hope this helps

There's a program called Secrets that will allow you to turn this off. It installs as a system preference and gives you options to all sort of hiddens preferences most Apple programs.

http://secrets.blacktree.com/

Hey guys,

I was looking for a solution on this forum than i have realised that i have got the best solution for this. This Auto-play function is so lame and it should be turned off in preferences. Anyway if you are a music addict like me and if you want to keep listening your pre added music while adding (dragging - dropping new music folders to itunes ), you should use this simple app to add new music :

'Music Folder Files Not Added'

Now you are able to do both:

which files and folders are not added to your library,

and you will be able import them without auto playing them.

this is so simple.

cheers.

Jeff Fischer1 wrote:

Open Terminal and paste in the following, then hit return:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes play-songs-while-importing FALSE

Did not work with iTunes11 Mac OSX 10.7.5

I just have to remember to turn the iTunes volume down prior to importing / refreshing my monster server music folder to get the newest tunes I've added.

The Answer lies in Safari NOT iTunes.. Simply go to Safari Preferences and under the General tab at the bottom untick "Open safe files after downloading"

And Note "Safe" files inc Movies, Music, Pictures, Sounds, Pdfs. And Archives..

This definetly works on every mac I've been asked to sort!!

enjoy!