The 23 Best iTunes Add-ons

iTunes may not be the best media player on the market, but let's facefacts: with its tight integration with our iPods and its excellentplaylisting tools, it's very likely the digital jukebox you're usingevery day to manage your music. With that in mind, it's time you takeiTunes to the next level. We've already tackled the 20 Best iPod Utilities, so today we're taking a look at the 23 iTunes add-ons that can take your iTunes experience from good to great. Notifiers and Universal Shortcuts

CD Art Display (Windows):Display currently playing track, album art, rating, and tons of otherwildly customizable features. In addition, CD Art Display can downloadmissing album art and create universal hotkeys for controlling iTunes. (Download) (Read more)
moreTunes (Windows):Similar to CD Art Display, moreTunes displays a floating album artnotification but instead has an emphasis on completing or repairingyour metadata. moreTunes also has a recommendation feature and workswith several other non-iTunes media players. (Download) (Read more)
Quicksilver (Mac):Control iTunes playback, browse your iTunes library, and more from thecomfort of your favorite application launcher and beyond Quicksilver. (Download) (Read more)
DeskTunes (Mac): Another iTunes notifier, DeskTunes floats the current album art, track name, and rating on your Mac desktop. (Download) (Read more)
You Control: Tunes (Mac):Control iTunes from the menu bar, define universal hotkeys for changingtracks, view current song info or navigate and play any song in yourentire iTunes library all from the You Control: Tunes menu bar dropdown. (Download) (Read more)
DockArt (Mac):This plug-in performs one very simple tweak, replacing your iTunes iconin the Dock with the album artwork of the currently playing song. It'snot a huge tweak, but it's certainly lovable. (Download) (Read more)
iConcertCal (Windows/Mac):Installs a new "visualization" to iTunes that scans your music libraryand then displays upcoming concerts in your area for artists in youriTunes library on a calendar. (Download) (Read more)

Utilities

iTunes Folder Watch (Windows):Monitor folders for new music and automatically add the songs to youriTunes library if they haven't already been imported to iTunes. It's afeature everyone wants and tons of other players have, so this one's amust-have for a lot of iTunes users—especially if you download fromsources other than iTunes (*wink*) (Download) (Read more)
Senuti (Mac): Copy songs from any iPod to your iTunes library. There are other iPod-to-computer tools available for Mac and Windows, like iPod -> Folder,but Senuti stands out for this list for its ability to tell you whatmusic on an iPod is already in your library and which songs are not,making it easy to slurp new songs from a friend's iPod withoutintroducing duplicates into your library. (Download) (Read more)
iTunes Export (Windows):Okay, so let's say you decide that you really do want to move youriTunes library to another computer, or maybe you just want to exportthe perfect playlist to a thumb drive to give to that special someone.Either way, iTunes export gets your music out of iTunes for moving toanother computer or device. (Download) (Read more)
MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter (Windows): Turn your MP3 audiobooks into the iTunes standard M4B audiobook format easily with MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter. (Download) (Read more)
iTunes Sync (Windows):Love iTunes but haven't shelled out for an iPod? iTunes Sync syncs youriTunes library to your non-iPod MP3 players—like one from this verified working list. (Download) (Read more)
XiphQT (Windows/Mac): Play back audio files encoded in the popular open source Ogg codec with the XiphQT plugin. (Download) (Read more)
DRM Dumpster (Mac):Automates the tedious but generally simplest and most effective methodfor stripping DRM from iTunes music—by burning it to a CD and rippingit back to your library. (Download) (Read more)
iTunes Remote Control (Mac):Remotely control playback of another iTunes library on your network byplaying and skipping tracks, browsing playlists, searching songs, andmore. (Download) (Read more)
iSproggler (Windows) and iScrobbler (Mac): Automatically upload your iTunes listening habits to the popular social music recommendation site Last.fm. (Download iSproggler [Windows], iScrobbler [Mac]) (Read more)

Tagging Tools

Moody (Mac):Tag your tunes by color-based moods with this simple tagging tool. Notonly does Moody take the work out of tagging, but it also automaticallycreates playlists for you to listen to your mood music. (Download) (Read more)
Quick Tag (Mac):Quickly add tags to the current song playing in iTunes with a simple,universal keyboard shortcut and autocompletion for quick tagging.Metadata goes into the Grouping field for easy playlist creation later.(Download) (Read more)
Qloud (Windows/Mac):Qloud adds a button to iTunes for in-program tagging of your music,which—for better or worse—integrates with Qloud's social networking andrecommendation feature. (Download) (Read more)

Playlist Generators

AutoRate (Mac):Some people love rating songs in iTunes, others don't. But the greatpart about ratings is that they're really handy when you're creatingsmart playlists, which is why AutoRate—an app that analyzes playfrequency and skip count to automatically assign ratings to yourmusic—is a handy download to have in your pocket. (Download) (Read more)
Soundflavor DJ (Windows): Soundflavor makes audio fingerprints of your music and builds playlists based on similarity of those fingerprints. (Download) (Read more)
The Filter (Windows/Mac):Another playlist creation and recommendation tool, give The Filterthree songs so it knows the feel you're looking for and it will buildyou a playlist based on that mood. (Download) (Read more)
Top 13 iTunes AppleScripts (Mac):Whether you're looking to create playlists like a list of all yourone-hit wonders or three-for-all blocks of your favorite artists, Ihighlighted the 13 best iTunes AppleScripts for bolstering iTunes onthe Mac. (Read more) To weed through the entirety of excellent iTunes AppleScripts, check out Doug's AppleScripts.