How to Keep Your iTunes Purchases Under Wraps and Organize Your Digital Library

Hey there! Today, I want to share a cool trick with you on how to hide those pesky iTunes purchases that you don’t want everyone seeing. Not only that, but I’ll also show you how to tidy up your digital library, making it easier to find what you’re looking for. Let’s get started!

First things first – hiding your iTunes purchases. Sometimes, you might buy something on iTunes that you’d rather keep to yourself. Whether it’s an embarrassing guilty pleasure or a surprise gift for someone, hiding your purchases is a breeze.

Here’s what you do: open up iTunes and head to your account settings. Scroll down until you find the “Hidden Purchases” section. Tick the box next to the purchase you want to hide, and voila! It’s gone from your library, and nobody will know it ever existed.

But wait, there’s more! Let’s talk about cleaning up your digital library. We all know how frustrating it is when you’re scrolling through your music or movie collection, trying to find that one thing you want to enjoy. Well, I have a solution for you.

Start by organizing your library into neat categories. Create playlists for different moods or occasions, like “Chill Vibes” or “Party Jams.” You can also sort your music by genre or artist, so you can quickly find exactly what you’re in the mood for.

For movies and TV shows, consider creating folders based on genres or themes. Have a folder for action flicks, another for comedies, and so on. This way, when you’re craving a specific type of entertainment, you can go straight to the relevant folder and pick your favorite.

Now, let’s talk about duplicates. We’ve all been there – accidentally downloading the same song or movie twice. It’s a waste of space and can be confusing when you’re trying to find the original. Thankfully, iTunes has a feature to help you out.

Head over to the “File” menu and select “Display Duplicates.” This will show you all the duplicate files in your library. Go through them and delete the extras. It’s a quick and easy way to free up some space and keep your library nice and tidy.

So there you have it! By following these simple steps, you can hide those embarrassing iTunes purchases and keep your digital library well-organized. No more scrolling endlessly or struggling with duplicates. Enjoy your music, movies, and shows with ease. Happy organizing!

Ever since it first came out in 2003, the iTunes Store has been a fantastic place to find and buy digital content. Over the years, it has expanded to include not just music but also TV shows, movies, and more. This has given users like me plenty of opportunities to grow our digital libraries. For instance, Apple often gives out free downloads of TV show pilot episodes and behind-the-scenes documentaries. They also make it easy to sample a new show by letting us buy individual episodes before committing to a whole season. But this flexibility means that many of us now have huge digital libraries filled with stuff we don’t want. The problem is, even if we don’t have those items downloaded to our computers, we still see them in our iTunes libraries. So, how can we hide these unwanted TV shows and movies from our libraries? And how can we get them back if we change our minds?
To show you how to hide iTunes purchases, I’ll use a TV show download as an example. But keep in mind that these steps work for other iTunes content like movies and music too. Now, let’s say my iTunes TV show library is filled with years’ worth of purchases. But among the shows I actually want to watch, there are also a bunch of one-off downloads. These include things like free promotions, old sporting events, and shows that I tried and didn’t like.

One example is the 2007 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby. I’m sure I enjoyed it eight years ago, but I’m probably not going to watch it again. So, I want to hide it from my iTunes library. This way, I can focus on the shows and content that I actually want to watch now.

The first step is to delete the show from my computer if I already have it downloaded. To do this, I just select it in iTunes and press the Delete key on my keyboard. If I’m using a Windows computer, I can also press the Backspace key. Another option is to right-click on the item and choose Delete from the menu. iTunes will ask me to confirm this decision and then ask if I want to just remove the file from iTunes or also delete it from my computer. Depending on how much space I want to save, I can choose either option.
Now, the file is deleted from my computer’s storage drive. But I might be surprised to see that it’s still listed in iTunes. This happens because of Apple’s iTunes in the Cloud service. This service lets me view all my purchased content without having to download it. Normally, this is great. But when I’m dealing with unwanted content like now, it can be annoying.

Note: If you don’t see the file you just deleted, you may have iTunes set to hide cloud purchases. You can change this by going to View > All My TV Shows (or Movies, Music, etc., depending on the type of content).

You can easily tell if content is downloaded or cloud-based by looking for a little cloud icon next to the file.

So, the file is gone from my hard drive, which is good. But it’s still in my iTunes library, which is bad. To hide it permanently, I select the file again and press Delete on my keyboard. This time, iTunes asks if I want to hide the content. I choose Hide TV Show (or Movie, Song, etc.). Now, the content disappears, leaving me with a slightly cleaner iTunes library. I can repeat these steps for any other content I want to hide.

But what if I accidentally hide something or if, a few months later, I decide that I actually want to watch those episodes of Days of Our Lives that I bought last Valentine’s Day when I was feeling a bit sentimental? Thankfully, there’s a quick way to restore hidden iTunes purchases whenever I want. I just click on my name in the iTunes title bar and choose Account Info. Then, I enter my account password when prompted and go to the Hidden Purchases section under “iTunes in the Cloud.” Here, I click Manage.

In this section, I’ll see a list of all the songs, movies, TV shows, and other iTunes content that I’ve hidden. When I find the item I want to restore, I simply click Unhide. The item instantly reappears in my iTunes Cloud library, and I can stream or re-download it whenever I want.