Why is iTunes 11 search so slow? I keep my music (it's alot 30,000 songs,) on an external drive. Always have. With this version the search is painfully slow. I get the pinwheel and a slow death to get simple search results from my library.

Thank you - this advice solved the problem 🙂 I should of course have remembered - I encountered this problem several years ago, but had completely forgotten how I solved it then when it arrived again 🙂

I understand your frustration. I was in the same boat until this morning. I am a DJ and iTunes is my life. I, too have a large library of almost 100K songs and the search function is absolutely necessary for what I do. I was at the Apple store yesterday and four different people there told me nothing I hadn't looked into before. However, in the search field box, there is a dropdown on the left hand side, uncheck the "Search Entire Library" and the search function will work as it used to in iTunes 10 and previous where it only displays songs pertaining to your search. It will also really search your entire library even though "Search Entire Library" isn't checked. It doesn't bring up the stupid little dropdown menu that categorizes everything for you into songs, albums, etc. See if that helps. It seems to search faster and more accurately as well. In my searches for about an hour this morning, I haven't had any problems. Hope this helps pal.

Thank you so much, DJDMurrI am a DV and had the same problem

If you have lots of Smart Play Lists and the 'live update' is enabled this will slow down iTunes - not just v11.

MJ

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! iTunes is now much faster!!

Great suggestion and it helps. My collection is approching that 100K mark and dealing with it dog slow.

Your solution does work in that it returns the functionality of filtering on what is typed (sans the dropdown menu). Nice work.

My filter is still very slow though. It usually takes like a second to filter after I type, where in the old itunes it worked instantly. I've yet to see anything with itunes 11 that is better than 10 (there is a lot that is worse).

Not only is iTunes deathly slow, but the sync function is now snail pace too. Where it used to take mere minutes to sync with my phone or iPad or iPod, it now takes up to half an hour to sync. It takes longer to sync a single track than it does to rip it off a CD! And for some reason best known to Apple, itunes seems to think that random music tracks have suddenly disappeared, because tracks that have been on my iPod for ages suddenly require syncing - I get between 60 and 800 tracks needing sync EVERY time!! This cannot be correct!!

Searching is just one problem. Like you Im a DJ. Have reason to re tag my stuff often. Re Tagging or importing tracks takes forever. Crap version. The first time ever that I think I need an alternative to itunes.

remember this

To find exact duplicates, press the Option key and choose File > Display Exact Duplicates.

and yes, turning off search all items worked for me

Thanks! It's those little things that can make such a major difference. Wow. Great.

Now , how do I get the graphics to show at full size again?

How can I get my iPod Classic 160G to run the Genius app with the 9 category-based dynamic playlists? This Genius feature continues to work in iTunes 11, but not on the iPod Classic. The Genius menu selection on the iPod Classic now gives me an odd message about how I need to turn on Genius in iTunes.

It sure was nice when iTunes 10.7 was working. Apple does not seem to care about people who have spent 10+ years creating huge iTunes music libraries with extensive album art and liner notes (meta data); —people who have XP 32 bit machines and do not see the point of buying a new machine. If I had NEVER upgraded iTunes i would have been better off. EVERY upgrade after version 6, seemed to screw up something new. I will NEVER upgrade iTunes until Apple acknowledges their mistakes and vows to correct specific errors.

If I could find a software replacement for iTunes that has a seamless transfer and all the former iTunes graphic features, I would BUY the software. VLC -the Free media player is **** good and maybe the software!

As for going back to iTunes 10; —forgeddaboudit. Thomas Hardy said you can never go back...

Thanks for this. I'm happy enough with it now. 🙂

Although it is an old answer, I've just read it and I could love again my iTunes (handling a 900GB library). Thank you!

Hi, DJDMurr! You are awesome. I had this same problem and no idea how to fix it. Thank you!!