Revert back to iTunes 10 from iTunes 11 (Mac Edition)

[UPDATE 2015-01-17] New Article: How to make iTunes 12 look and act more like iTunes 10

Thanks to Danny Rolnick for this very detailed and helpful explanation and for his permission to post it here on Randosity. His steps came in as a comment. However, because my previous Randosity article on this topic was clearly geared toward Windows, I thought this one deserved its own topic, especially as thoughtful and well written as his comment was. So, without further adieu, here is Danny’s very detailed explanation on how to rock and roll back to iTunes 10 from iTunes 11, if you’re using Mac OS X.

To go back to iTunes 10, I am happy to show you the way — By Danny Rolnick

I happily regard myself an expert now on how to downgrade iTunes 11 back to 10 on a Mac. Having found a straightforward and logical way of doing so, I thought it my duty to share with others. I can’t express what a relief it is to have version 10 back again. See the method at the bottom. Feel free to jump down there if you want to get started. Let me know how you got on in the comments below.

My view on the experience I have had of using iTunes 11

I have been a mac obsessed devoted fan all my life (I’m 46), never used a PC and got my first mac back in 1988. Until just the past few months I wouldn’t hear anyone say anything derogatory about anything Apple. However, a few things are rocking my ‘religious like’ devotion. Most of all, I have been dumbfounded about issues of the recent iTunes evolution in version 11.

I am also obsessed with music, movies and music videos. It’s not just a hobby – I am a DJ and Video DJ by profession. iTunes, since the very first release, has been the backbone of the way I organize and store all my digital media. I never had any need to seek an alternative and have also enjoyed the integration it provides with my iPhone and other iDevices etc etc.

My library is huge. I don’t mean to brag but aside from my digital music collection of 40,000 + tracks, either purchased from the iTunes store or imported from my CD collection, my music video collection is over 10,000. I am a proficient iTunes user and I often have reason to need to re-tag my files within iTunes or sometimes I use MetaX.

Until now, I have never resisted installing any available Apple updates and even feel some excitement in anticipation of the improved features. etc. iTunes version 11 has changed all that now. iTunes 11 is, without question, an inferior version to 10. Anyone who feels otherwise is probably only using iTunes in a basic way, and for this reason I have always thought there was a market for a pro version of iTunes for people like me.

iTunes 11 simply doesn’t work

I click to play a track, click again because it hasn’t started and click another time.  Only then do I hear the track play. It takes ages to build links to external files, just as long as it takes to actually import them to the media folder. Tagging takes ridiculously long to the point you would need to leave the tagging to be done overnight. I could go on, but you are probably reading this because you have already experienced your own issues concerning version 11.

Before following the method below, I tried to seek alternatives to iTunes all together. I briefly tried Double Twist and Song Bird among many other software packages, but the truth is that iTunes is better for my personal purposes.

The most disappointing thing about version 11 is the silence from Apple about the obvious problems. It is this specific fact that has aggravated me so much. Maybe I am romanticizing, but I can’t help imagine that Steve Jobs would have ever let version 11 go as far as actually being released.

Steps to revert to iTunes 10 from iTunes 11

Here are the Stages and Steps for Mac OS X only. Thank you to Bogoss on MacForums for help with this article.

Stage 1 — Uninstall iTune11, Reinstall iTunes 10

Note: Any changes you have made to your music files since you used last used version 10 will be lost but any purchasses you have made in the time since can be downloaded again if you can’t find those purchasses in your media folder. If recently made playlists are of particular importance you could export the lists to somewhere for later.

1. Back up your iTunes Folder(s) just in case.
2. Download these apps
   • AppZapper: http://appzapper.com (the free version will do).
   • Pacifist: http://www.charlessoft.com.
3. Download iTunes 10.7 (last version before 11). Check your download folder, it might still be there. You can also get it from the 10.7 Apple Support Web Site (Click the big download button)
4. Using AppZapper, simply uninstall iTunes 11. Before you drag the iTunes icon from the Application folder to the window you will need to open the preferences of AppZapper and deselect the box next to “Keep Apple applications safe”
5. Open the 10.7 dmg file, you will see the pkg file (usually you would double click it to install), but now, this time drag it out somewhere (e.g. Desktop).
6. Open Pacifist
7. Drag the pkg iTunes 10.7 file to Pacifist and then click install from the menu bar
8. During installation, click replace every time a window pops up.
9. Installation finished, iTunes 10.7 is back!
10. Don’t open it yet!!!!

Stage 2 — Recover your Library

See this video that explains the process to recover your library here:

1. In FINDER – go to your iTunes Music Folder located in (Your User Account)=>Music=>iTunes
2. Within it, open the folder called Previous iTunes Libraries.
3. Identify the most recent backup. It has the date at the end.
4. Duplicate it. Move it to the desktop.
5. Rename it as ‘iTunes Library.itl’. Basically remove the date from the file name.
6. Go back to your iTunes Folder and rename the file there which is already named ‘iTunes Library.itl’ to ‘iTunes Library.itl.old’.
7. Now move the ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file from your desktop to this location.
8. Now open iTunes 10.7. If it can’t find your iTunes library, select choose library and navigate the application to the new ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file you created.
9. Breathe a sigh of relief, you’re done!
10. Copy this and post it to help others. Only come back to me to say Thanks, not for more support.

Danny

Revert back to iTunes 10 from iTunes 11 (Windows Edition)

[UPDATE 2015-01-17] New Article: How to make iTunes 12 look and act more like iTunes 10

If you’re looking for the Mac OS X downgrade steps, please check out this Randosity article. After giving iTunes 11 a fair shake, I have come to the conclusion that this version is so hopelessly broken that I just can’t deal with it any longer. So, I’ve decided to roll back to iTunes 10.

The iTunes 11 botch

It is very obvious that Tim Cook (and crew) are systematically undoing every ideal that Jobs held for Apple. iTunes 11 is no exception. With its missing menus, unnecessary drop down menus, haphazard interface, missing Radio link (well, not missing, but moved to a hard-to-find area), huge graphical album listings and no easy way to set art on music any more, the whole iTunes 11 release is one big botch. Well, the last straw came today when I tried importing a CD. It imported fine until I stopped it because I realized the import settings were wrong. When I attempted to restart the import, iTunes 11 would only begin at the next track and refused to replace the existing, something that iTunes 10 does quite nicely. When I put a second CD into my second drive, the whole app locked up. Then, I killed it with task manager. On startup, it proceeded to lock up Windows and prevent me from working with the desktop. I’ve never had this issue with iTunes 10. Worse, playlist metadata is now stupidly globally linked. Meaning, if you uncheck a song in one playlist and it exists in other playlists, it unchecks the song there too. So, now checkboxes are global settings across the whole of iTunes. That’s just some of the underwhelming, but major changes in iTunes 11. I’ve had it with iTunes 11 and all of its stupid new quirks.

Rewriting that much of an app is really a gamble and this is one gamble didn’t pay off. I’ve heard some people seem to like some of the changes. I’m not one of them. Seriously, what was the benefit to changing the interface that radically for no end-user payoff? I mean, at least give us users some kind of a bone to endure that kind of radical change. There just isn’t any reward for dealing with this massive of a change. All we get is whole lot of learning curve, fighting through bugs, dealing with stupidity in UI design all without any substantial ease of use improvements.

Restoring iTunes 10

Well, I finally made the decision to revert back to iTunes 10. The first problem was locating the most recent version of iTunes 10. Thankfully, Apple Support keeps older iTunes versions online (or at least, they’re there now). So, if you are thinking of reverting back to iTunes 10, you might want to grab your copy now before they take it down. But, keep in mind that once you’ve upgraded to iTunes 11, your ‘iTunes Library.itl’ (What are the iTunes library files?) file will be updated to the latest format which is incompatible with iTunes 10. So, you will have to restore back to an older version of library.itl or possibly face rebuilding your entire media library from files on disk.

Steps to revert on Windows:

• Download iTunes 10 from the above link
• Start->Control Panel->Programs and Features
• Make note of the iTunes 11 ‘Installed On’ date.
• Uninstall iTunes 11
• Install iTunes 10
  • Don’t start iTunes 10 at this point or you will receive an error stating that library.itl was created by a newer version. Continue on with the steps below.
• Go to C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes
• Rename ‘iTunes Library.itl’ to ‘iTunes library.iTunes11.itl’ (in case you want to revert back using this file)
  • Note the space in the name
• Copy the most recent backup of ‘iTunes Library.itl’ or of a date just before you installed iTunes 11
  • Copy C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries\library.<date>.itl to
  • C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes\library.itl
  • If you don’t have a backup copy, you can simply delete ‘iTunes Library.itl’, but you’ll probably have to rebuild your media library from scratch. Deleting this file doesn’t delete your music, it will just remove iTunes’ reference to it.
  • If you have a ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’, you may be able to import that to rebuild your library more easily.
  • You should regularly export your library as ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ anyway in case iTunes ever gets corrupted.
• Once you have iTunes 10 installed and ‘iTunes Library.itl’ recovered, you can start up iTunes 10. Assuming the ‘iTunes Library.itl’ was a backup created by iTunes 10, it should start just fine. If it doesn’t, keep recovering older ‘iTunes Library.<date>.itl’ backup files until you find one that works.

Now you’ll want to review your library to ensure that any new music you’ve bought or added is there. If not, you’ll have to add the folders of that music to this library.

Note, if you have changed where your library.itl resides, you will have to rename it there instead. If you haven’t modified iTunes in this way, library.itl will be in the above location (or whichever drive is your Windows boot drive letter).  Simply deleting the file, iTunes may be smart enough to pull its most recent backup copy, but I haven’t tested this.  So, I’d rather choose my library.itl from the backups.

Additional note, you can’t tell which version of iTunes generated the library.itl file. So, you will need to review your backup library.<date>.itl files and locate a dated file that’s before you installed iTunes 11. If you don’t remember the date you installed iTunes, you may be able to find the install date in Control Panel->Programs and Features.

Mac Note: that with the exception of the paths, the basics of these instructions may apply to MacOS X. I’ve just not reverted iTunes on MacOS X as yet. However, you’re in luck, Danny has produced a rollback article for Mac OS X here on Randosity for Mac OS X users.

Apple’s progressive slide

There are some technology changes that Apple makes that work. There are some that don’t. Part of the problem is a quality control issue. Steve Jobs was a stickler for high quality control to the point of perfectionism. This is a good thing in that Apple’s quality was always near perfect when Jobs was on duty. Unfortunately, since Tim Cook has taken over, that quality level has dramatically slid down. The iPad 3 was the first example, then OS X Lion, then iOS 6, Mountain Lion and now iTunes 11.  I won’t even get into that thing they’re calling an iPod nano.  I still shutter to think that someone at Apple thought the new taller iPod nano would actually have a real world use case over the ‘watch’ version? I should just avoid the obvious discussion about the whole taller nano debacle.

I’m not sure what the Apple engineers are thinking at this point, but one thing is crystal clear. There is no one at Apple driving quality control either at a software or hardware level. I doubt that Steve Jobs would have ever let iTunes 11 see the light of day the way it is now. The changes were far too drastic requiring a huge learning curve without any real benefit to the user. I mean seriously, what did Apple hope to accomplish by making this drastic of a software change?

For example, if Apple were planning on introducing a Netflix-like streaming service and iTunes needed the software to support this, I can full well understand implementing a needed software change to support this. If they were planning on allowing some new advanced technological approach to playlists, like Facebook style sharing of them, then maybe a change might be required. But, making a change just to make change isn’t useful or wanted. Complicating the interface and moving things to unnecessary new areas is not wanted. Users don’t want to have to relearn an interface just because someone decides to haphazardly move things around with no rhyme or reason.

Analysts amazingly silent?

I’ve yet to see any analysts making any calls on this or any other Apple quality issues. Yet, it’s crystal clear. Apple is not the Apple it once was. I’m sure the analysts are just biding their time to allow their clients to get their money out of Apple before making word of the problems that are just beginning to face Apple. In fact, it’s the same problem that now faces Sony. Sony used to be a top notch, high quality and innovative technology company who could basically do no wrong. Then, something happened at Sony and they’ve not been able to produce anything innovative in years. Apple is clearly on its way to becoming the next Sony. It’s also inevitable that without hiring someone (or several people) of the caliber of Steve Jobs that has both the technological vision combined with high levels of quality control, Apple doesn’t have a future.

As a software developer, you can’t just throw out any change to the wind and hope it succeeds. No, you have to bring in test groups to review the changes and find out how the average user responds to the changes. Apple shouldn’t have any trouble putting testing groups together. But, it appears that iTunes 11 did not get user tested at all. It’s a shame, too. iTunes 11 has some cool features, but those are just completely eclipsed by the poor quality of the software and the stupid design decisions.

Can Apple recover?

Yes, but it’s going to take someone (or several people) to bring quality control back to Apple and someone who is willing to say, ‘No, that sucks. Try again’.. just someone should have to said about iTunes 11 before it was ever released.