iTunes 8: How to Remove Genre from Browser View in OS X

Many people do not use the genre setting in iTunes. The genre window therefore becomes annoying in the browser view. Here is how to disable or hide the genre column from iTunes.


Music often falls into more than one genre. People often classify songs differently. For these reasons and many more, the genre classification is frequently not used in iTunes. In the browser view, the genre column takes up a great deal of space.

This tutorial is for older versions of iTunes. In versions of iTunes 10 and later it is much more simple to configure the browser (or column) view.

Here is how to remove it.

Before:

After:

1. Open Terminal
2. Enter this command and then hit Enter:

defaults write com.apple.itunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE

3. Close and reopen iTunes

Obviously, you can reverse these changes with the following command:

defaults write com.apple.itunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool TRUE

 

About David Kirk

David Kirk is one of the original founders of tech-recipes and is currently serving as editor-in-chief. Not only has he been crafting tutorials for over ten years, but in his other life he also enjoys taking care of critically ill patients as an ICU physician.
View more articles by David Kirk

The Conversation

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26 Responses to “iTunes 8: How to Remove Genre from Browser View in OS X”

  1. October 01, 2008 at 6:17 pm, Tony said:

    Thank you for the fix, i could not for the life of my figure out how to remove the genre bar.

    Reply

  2. October 02, 2008 at 7:48 pm, Paul said:

    Thanks for the usefull tip

    Reply

  3. October 08, 2008 at 4:19 pm, great tip said:

    nerrrrrrrrrrds!

    Reply

  4. October 08, 2008 at 8:32 pm, azazaz said:

    thanks man, genre bugs the hellhounds out of me.

    Reply

  5. October 12, 2008 at 2:43 am, Leo said:

    This tip has saved my love of Macs. So incredibly lame that Genre is even included.

    Thanks a million.

    Reply

    • October 12, 2008 at 3:35 am, davak said:

      My pleasure! Thanks for all the kind comments!

      Reply

  6. October 18, 2008 at 5:16 pm, Jason Wilson said:

    Very nice and thanks. You should offer more cool terminal scripts if you don’t already.

    Reply

  7. October 24, 2008 at 11:27 am, Bakis said:

    Thank a lot :-)

    Reply

  8. November 16, 2008 at 10:09 am, Brian said:

    Thank you SO MUCH.

    Reply

  9. December 03, 2008 at 10:37 pm, Anonymous said:

    Thanks a million!

    Reply

  10. December 08, 2008 at 3:44 pm, JIM said:

    Thank you so much.

    Reply

  11. December 10, 2008 at 12:56 pm, Nick said:

    Thanks a million

    Reply

  12. December 15, 2008 at 6:05 pm, Dan said:

    Thanks!

    Reply

  13. December 19, 2008 at 11:35 am, tim said:

    genius. been trying to get rid of the genre list…..it’s ridiculous.
    Thanks a million!!!!

    Reply

  14. December 24, 2008 at 5:15 pm, music is for lovers said:

    Thanks! So annoying that it’s not just a checkbox…

    Reply

  15. January 06, 2009 at 10:23 pm, danny g said:

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! ;)

    Reply

  16. February 25, 2009 at 4:01 pm, shawn said:

    man that pisses me off
    why would they take away ones ability to control that.
    thanks for the tip.

    Reply

  17. March 02, 2009 at 1:28 am, Jak said:

    Awesome – Thanks a bunch :)

    Reply

    • March 07, 2009 at 11:07 am, guervo said:

      Ditto, genre is Lame.

      Reply

  18. March 10, 2009 at 9:56 pm, luke said:

    thanks so much! why the hell did they remove the ability to hide/show genre in itunes 8?

    Reply

  19. March 30, 2009 at 4:42 pm, Andy said:

    Thank you! I’ve hated the genre screen so much that i haven’t used iTunes in months.

    I wonder why Apple put that window there with no easy way to remove it…

    Reply

  20. April 17, 2009 at 8:44 am, Mahatma_dj said:

    genius! Honestly, does ANYONE actually use the genre thing/

    Reply

  21. April 24, 2009 at 9:59 pm, mick said:

    Thank you, thank you!

    Reply

  22. May 09, 2009 at 4:11 pm, Dustin said:

    Thanks that was getting annoying and now it looks so much better.

    Reply

  23. March 18, 2012 at 12:47 am, Howard said:

    duhhh… sorry I’m such a dolt but in the directions above… What does “Open Terminal” mean? Where’s the Terminal?

    Reply

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