Can i delete itunes folder...

[aaagat111]

I recently updated to iTunes 7. First, of all it is great, aside from the icon, which i changed back to the iTunes 6 icon.
Anyway, with 7, you can import artwork from the iTunes store, yet when you do this it saves some .itc files and local files in Muic/iTunes/Artwork. This folder has grown to more than 100 mb. Can i delete this folder or is it important to the songs.

In the past i know the songs retain the artwork when transferred, so the artwork much be attached to the song somehow, but didn't want to delete that folder and lose all the artwork.
Thanks,

-AAA

 

[kondspi]

I'd say you should try deleting. Leave it in the trash, and if the songs give you trouble, move it back. I don't think it will impact the songs though.

 

[elisha cuthbert]

just put an extension on the folder
eg
folder
to
folder.pkg
it will make it seem like a pakage file but not operate as one
and if it messes up the artwork take the extension off
easy as that

 

[26139]

Um...

I understand you want to free up disk space, but, seriously, what's a 100 mb on a hard drive that started at 80 gigs?

 

[N10248]

It's pointless deleting it because it will come back as soon as you use the coverflow or album views.

This folder is a cache of all of your embedded album art (to help speed up coverflow etc), inside there willl be a "local and "Downloaded" folder, the local one will reappear but the downloaded one will only come back if you have itunes set up to download missing art.

bye

 

[aaagat111]

-

Alright, i guess in general it doesn't make sense to delete it then. I will just leave it and forget it then.

Thanks for the quick responses.

-AAA

 

[decksnap]

I don't believe art downloaded from iTunes is embedded at all. So, if you have artwork embedded from before, a copy is made in the art folder for coverflow. But if you got your artwork through iTunes, this folder is the only place that the artwork is stored. (Yes, it seems dumb). So deleting this folder will delete any artwork you got from iTunes altogether.

 

[balamw]

(Yes, it seems dumb).

I agree that it seems dumb and breaks from earlier tradition, but it is closer to the way the iPod handles artwork and saves disk space in the end.

Imagine the OPs library with the artwork applied to each file. Assuming 10 tracks per album, now 1 GB would be used up in storing the artwork... The price for high quality artwork.

FWIW: Previously what I did was save the 600x600 file as folder.jpg in the album folder and resize it to 300x300 for embedding in the file...

B

 

[decksnap]

I agree that it seems dumb and breaks from earlier tradition, but it is closer to the way the iPod handles artwork and saves disk space in the end.

Imagine the OPs library with the artwork applied to each file. Assuming 10 tracks per album, now 1 GB would be used up in storing the artwork... The price for high quality artwork.

FWIW: Previously what I did was save the 600x600 file as folder.jpg in the album folder and resize it to 300x300 for embedding in the file...

B

I do agree with you in that sense...but with the cost of disk space these days and the size of drives, that has become a non-issue for most.

I am more thinking about a couple of other problems... one being the messiness of having artwork stored two different ways, and not knowing/remembering which songs have embedded artwork and which ones don't.

This leads to the secondary set of issues... like moving songs somewhere else will result in losing artwork... or like the day I 'upgraded' my embedded artwork to artwork from iTunes, and my artwork screensaver went completely blank because it only reads embedded art.

 

[balamw]

I am more thinking about a couple of other problems...

I agree 100%. The fact that the cached database has separate entries for downloaded artwork and embedded seems silly at best. It would also be very nice if Apple would make some artwork related features available in smart playlists. e.g. if album art is "downloaded" or "embedded" or "none"

The size of the library is more of an issue for those of us with mega libraries and on portables or iPods where a GB of HDD space isn't that insignificant.

B