Remove album covers!!!
Weird question...I know!!! But I've got a sizeable collection of music on iTunes (800GB/105,000 'songs' ---- speeches, efx, et al...maybe 45-50k unique and actual 'songs'---still a bit and all 'ripped' in Apple's + 256 format). We use Serato, Traktor and dJay as well as iTunes during 'mix' times (dinner, cocktails, et al...), you get the idea. We're a mobile business and I'm trying to get rid of a lot of what I don't need...and I absolutely don't need album art. It means nothing to us and after running a sweep (OmniDisk), I've found almost 70GB of what looks to be iTunes 17.5MB JPegs....which, I'm assuming is 'album art'. Would this make sense to most? Is there a better way for me to clear the pics without using something a third party, freeware program like ODS? Is there a way to make absolutely SURE iTunes doesn't automatically D/L album art in the future? Certainly from the art I've removed...and no longer for new music purchased (We buy specifically now through iTunes, too **** convenient!) ....anyway, backwards thinking and after looking and looking I'm not sure what I want to do. I just, today reinstalled Mavericks....last night at another Holiday Party (Yes!!! In January, I have another next weekend for 2,800 people and this CAN'T Fail!!!! We've got a new rMBP 15" with redundant libraries booted...running DMX ligthing and set to go in the case of an iMac failure). We booted up, hit iTunes....no problem (I'm at about 90% capacity on a TB HDD. It NEEDS to be paired down...but it's a Mega Daunting task 🙂). Everything good, iTunes was perfect, booted as normal---set sound prefs to external USB soundcard....awesome!! Killer sound, perfect .....everthing. Paired with iPad (LTE). Hit Safari, "Fatal Error"....lots of notes on why it wouldn't open...yada yada. Thinking a fluke in the 10.9.1 update, I hit software update, same error. Cannot Open....Oh SHIzzzzLEEEE. What's up? Reboot (I still carry 300, mainly compilation CDs....with exceptions, Mike Jackson, Madonna, Seger, Skynyrd, and Journey:)) ---Comes up (Again, 15" rMBP (2013/top shelf build, my personal computer in reserve if we have a failure)....iTunes boots. Perfect. Works...Perfect. Same fatal errors in AppStore/Updates and Safari. Couldn't even open Finder without a persistent (20 minute) beachball and hard restart. Reinstallled today via recovery, she's perfect. Hoping I didn't miss the Seagate replacement deadline. That concerns me....but I haven't had trouble and it's strictly an audio playback machine---but for 65 of our 130 gigs a year. It gets mileage. 2011 build, 16GB RAM, 1TB spinner...and music in on board. Not external...and haven't figured out a way to clone an exact dupe of the iTunes files and XML matches to the main system either----with Carbon Copy, it can't find the song. 'nother topic...but if you know how to do this, an external backup would ALWAYS be welcome, espcially using laptops (I'm not going to waste a 1TB PCIe SSD on 800GB of YMCA and We are Family!).
Back to topic. Can I remove (I can...it WILL Allow me...) the jPegs without harm to iTunes (again---pays the mortgage and plays nice with both Traktor and Serato--longer story, longer....couple guys with different preferences)....can I remove those 70GBs with a program like OmniDiskSweep? Is there a setting (I SWEAR I've looked, Googled and struggled to find it!!! I know EXACTLY where it was in 10.x.x!!!!) I need to hit to further guarantee 'No More Album Art'. And Finally....being an Apple Discussion Board---PLEASE, I need an answer. If there isn't a 'safe' answer, how do I put this in the ear of the dudes and dudettes (I'm 42, trying to be 'hip') that develop iTunes---and continue to 'refine' such a Magnificent Piece of Software (No---I'm NOT being Facetious (sp? Why no spell correct built in here???? This has taking me FOREver to figure out an answer for----If you've got one (and possibly cloning another external that I can keep continously organized and up to date with another....essentially a contingency plan, a backup that'll plug n play with existing XML tags in library??? Wow, long sentence, longer post!!!)
Sorry. Tl.Dr.---makes it way too much longer to sum it up:)
Happy New Year, from Alaska....a place warmer right now it looks like than 70% of the rest of the country:) Shhhh....don't tell anyone!
iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)