Although we are happy with the new iTunes 11, there are folks out there struggling and eventually complaining about this media player. One of the common complaint is that the new iTunes 11 no longer shows album artwork in the left pane. There was an Album List View in iTunes 10, if you remember, which is now replaced with Artist view in the newer version.
Some of the power users have expressed disappointment over this missing feature, which — fortunately — can be brought back. First, let’s look at the complaints from the Apple forum:
In list view, album art is invisible — the album art square in the lower left-hand corner is gone. So unless the track is playing, you can’t see album art. This is terrible news for people who need list view, like DJs. People like me who rely on album art to remember what an album is, can no longer just click around and see the covers. This was a tremendous memory aid, which is now gone.
For me, iTunes 11 is much worse than iTunes 10.
You can no longer view album art by selecting a track in list view.
Now to see album covers, you have to either play the track, or switch to grid or artist list — which show either no tracks, or very few tracks.
Apple may have meticulously polished the surface of iTunes 11 but taking out existing features have left a lot of users angry, as you can probably figure out from this thread on Apple forum. Fortunately, there’s a way to bring back the lost album artwork. The solution, though fairly simple, requires a lot of effort. This is a manual solution, which means if you have thousands of songs that are completely unorganized, then you may want to look elsewhere.
We are going to select tracks, and drop the album cover image in a window. Here are the steps to follow:
- Click on the tracks you want the album artwork for, and then right-click and choose “Get info.”
- A window with this message appears: “Are you sure you want to edit info for multiple items?” Hit the “Yes” button.
- Drag the JPG or any other image file to the right-hand corner where it says “Artwork.”
Unfortunately, there’s no way to automate the whole process, which means next time if you want the album art preview or the album cover photo, you have to go through the whole process once again — it’s painful, we know. But do we have any other option?
Via Apple forum
