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Take command of iTunes with PowerTunes

by Dave Caolo Jul 9th 2008 at 2:00PM

PowerTunes is iTunes management software from Fat Cat Software, the developers who produced the popular iPhoto Library Manager (we've written about iPhoto Library Manager before). Its purpose is to make somewhat pesky tasks easy.

You can use PowerTunes to create multiple libraries. Perhaps you and your spouse have very different tastes in music, as well as separate iPods. Hey, I can relate. My wife's Paul Simon and 10,000 Maniacs collections keep butting heads with my Marilyn Manson tracks. Can't we all just get along?

Perhaps you'd like to keep a library for different settings; one for home and one for work. PowerTunes makes it easy. That the main interface makes the iTunes quite a bit larger, so understand that it will consume a lot of screen space when running.

Other spiffy features include an option to merge libraries, move your library off your main hard drive and cleanup orphaned tracks.

It will cost you $19.95US for a single license. Sure, you can do all of these tasks manually (read: free), but the convenience of "click and it's done" is nice. Plus, many users (not the geeks like you and me) couldn't be bothered with the manual method. If that's you, check this out. It's a nice piece of software.

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PowerTunes is iTunes management software from Fat Cat Software, the developers who produced the popular iPhoto Library Manager (we've...
 

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TonyL

@nitanny4: Use symbolic links.

July 09 2008 at 8:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jake

I dunno. I have their Iphoto library thing and it works well as a centralized switch for a variety of libraries on different disks and computers (2 photographers, 2 macs, 4 disks) on our wireless network. It looks like this one does the same thing. I admittedly could be a moron with $20 in my pocket, but I'll try it.

http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powertunes/Help/table%20of%20contents.html

July 09 2008 at 5:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jake's comment
Kev Orng

an iPhoto version, now THAT is something I need. Why won't iPhoto let me put my library on an external drive? I have way more photos than music.

July 10 2008 at 7:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mfa

How do you do it manually then?

July 09 2008 at 3:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mfa's comment
Nick

If you are looking for a free way (and don't mind a few "please donate" popups), Libra is an alternative program. It seems that PowerTunes is more full featured, but if you are just looking for a way to switch between multiple libraries, Libra is all you need. Then you don't have to worry about messing something up doing it manually! ;)

July 09 2008 at 6:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ER

I, for one (and it seems the only one on this post), am happy to see this app. Just today (+ last night) I was looking for a way to copy my backed-up iTunes playlist on to my newly reformatted MacBookPro. You see, I wiped my system to install Leopard and I'm only restoring certain documents from my Tiger backup, rather than just copy my entire Home directory. While I don't want to lose all the ratings and playlists from my old iTunes Library, I now do not have enough room to store my 60gig library on my laptop.

I needed a way to copy some of my old content (including the playlists, counts, and ratings) from my external HDD to my laptop (not to mention my other laptop or PC. I'm already tried a number of apps that were designed to do this, including Syncopation, Slingshot, myTuneSync, or TuneRanger (all mentioned in this Macworld post: http://www.macworld.com/article/133881/2008/07/syncitunes.html?lsrc=mwweek), but none of them would copy or work with an external hard drive.

So, I'm now hoping PowerTunes or SuperSync work. Which ever one does the job, they'll be getting my money.

July 09 2008 at 3:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to ER's comment
nittany4

I want to be able to have movies and tv shows on an external drive and music on my mac's drive

but have it all appear as one library in itunes

will this allow me to do that?

even better would be an extra bonus of when i add a song into itunes it copies to the mac's drive and when i add a video, the external....

i've downloaded demos before that make a terrible mess of things, so i'm a bit weary to try it

July 09 2008 at 4:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ian

*sigh* Give me an iTunes addon that allows me to add songs to my iPod/iPhone from both my work and home computers and I'll be very happy.

Heck, I'd probably pay $30 for it, too.

July 09 2008 at 2:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Ian's comment
Kev Orng

Agree, if my iTunes library at work and at home were in sync, and my iPod could charge/sync from whichever one was convenient, i'd be very happy.

On the other hand, it's less of a problem since I got the iPod touch. I used to buy music and get my single of the week while at work (and therefore thinking about music), which I would then have to ship home one way or another to load onto my iPod. Now I use iTunes at work to browse music, but I use the iPod to buy tracks.


July 09 2008 at 2:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Scott

I am confused. What is it about keeping different libraries that different playlists can not handle?

Plus, I tried to visit their website to see if the software did anything else... it wouldn't load.

July 09 2008 at 2:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
5 replies to Scott's comment
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