WITH ITUNES 11, APPLE radically overhauled the look of its all-purpose media manager for the first time in nearly 10 years. For newcomers to iTunes, that wasn’t a problem since they had to learn whole new program anyway. For some long-time users, it was a change long overdue, but for some it was also a jarring change that instantly lead to the question, “Hey, where’s all my stuff?

If you’re in that last group and long for the days of the Source panel that vertically listed all your libraries, connected devices, playlists, the iTunes Store, and everything else iTunes handled, fear not—Apple has not abandoned you. With just a few quick trips to the View menu, you can get back to familiar territory:

If you opt to give your iTunes 11 window a retro look, like the one shown above, you can push and pull the columns and panes by dragging their edges with your mouse. You can also right-click (Control-click) any column header to add a new category to sort by, or click the column heads and drag the columns into a whole new order.

LOVELY AS ITUNES IS, it takes up a heck of a lot of screen real estate. When you’re working on other things, you can shrink it down.

Tired of losing your iTunes mini-player among an array of windows on-screen? You can make it always visible, so that it sits on top of other open windows, documents, and assorted screen detritus. Open iTunes Preferences (Ctrl+comma [⌘-comma]), click the Advanced tab, and then turn on the checkbox next to “Keep Mini Player on top of all other windows.” Now you won’t have to click frantically around the screen trying to find iTunes if you get caught listening to your bubblegum-pop playlist at work.

IF YOU’RE HAPPY WITH the way the music sounds on your iPad, on your Apple TV, or through a pair of external speakers, feel free to safely ignore this page. But If you find the audio quality lacking, you can change the way iTunes encodes, or converts, songs when it imports them from a CD.

iPads can play several digital audio formats: AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and one called Apple Lossless. In iTunes’ Import Settings box (Edit [iTunes]→Preferences→General, and then click Import Settings), you get two main options. They are:

To see a song’s format and other technical info, click its title in iTunes, press Ctrl+I (⌘-I), and then click the Summary tab in the Get Info box. (See your name and Apple ID listed on iTunes Store tracks? Apple does keep a record of these things.)

INSTEAD OF JUST PRESENTING you with boring lists, iTunes gives you multiple ways to browse your media collection, some more visual than others. Just click the appropriate button at the top of the iTunes window. In all the views, an unadorned cloud () or a icon next to a title means you bought the item on another device and can download it here from iCloud.

AS YOUR ITUNES MEDIA library grows, you may have trouble remembering just what songs, movies, and so on you have, or what album a song came from. In times like these, take to the trusty search box in the right-hand corner of the iTunes window.

As with search boxes on Web browsers, operating systems, and every place else they tend to appear, you just have to start typing in a keyword (the artist’s name, a song title, and so on). With each letter you type, iTunes shortens the list, showing you only titles that match what you type.

For example, typing train brings up a list of everything in your collection that has the word “train” somewhere in the song’s information—maybe in the song’s title (“Mystery Train”), the band name (Wire Train), or the album name (Train A Comin’). The search function in iTunes 11 doesn’t limit itself to just one type of media, either. As shown below, you get results from across your media empire. Click a result in the list to jump to that item.

Another way to search for specific items is to use List view and the column browser mentioned on the previous page. (If you can’t see the column browser, press Ctrl+B [⌘-B].)

Depending on how you configured the browser in View→Column Browser, it reveals your music collection grouped by genre, artist, album, composer, or grouping—all in a nice vertical list. Hit the same keys again (Ctrl+B [⌘-B]) to close the browser.

SOMETIMES YOU’VE GOT a song in iTunes whose format you want to change—you might need to convert a big AIFF file before loading it onto your iPad, for example. First, head over to Edit→Preferences (iTunes→Preferences), click the General tab, and then click the Import Settings button. From the Import Using pop-up menu, pick the format you want to convert to and then click OK.

Now, in your iTunes library, select the song you want to convert and choose File→Create New Version→Create MP3 Version (or whatever format you chose).

If you have a whole folder or disk full of potential converts, hold down the Shift (Option) key as you choose File→Create New Version→Convert to MP3 (or your chosen encoding format). A window pops up so you can navigate to the folder or disk holding the files you want to convert. iTunes won’t convert protected media—Audible.com tracks and older tracks from the iTunes Store that still have copy-protection built in. If you bought a song after April 2009, though, odds are you’re delightfully free of such restrictions, since that’s when Apple stopped copy-protecting music.

iTunes deposits your freshly converted tracks in your library, alongside the songs in their original format.

TO IMPROVE THE WAY your songs sound, you can use iTunes’ graphic equalizer (EQ) to adjust various frequencies when you play certain types of music. You might want to boost the bass tones in dance tracks to emphasize the booming rhythm, for example.

To get the equalizer front and center, choose View (Window)→Equalizer. Then follow these steps:

You can apply equalizer settings to an entire album or to individual songs.

TIRED OF SONG-NAME TYPOS from an online database marring your lovely library? You can change track titles in iTunes a couple of ways.

When you see a song title in any of the views (Songs, Albums, Artists, Genres, or Playlists), click the text you want to change, wait a moment, and then click again. The title now appears highlighted, and you can edit the text—just as you do when you change a file name on a desktop computer.

Another way to change a song’s title, artist name, or other information is to click the song title in the iTunes window and press Ctrl+I (⌘-I) to summon the Get Info box. (Choose File→Get Info if you forget the keyboard shortcut.) Click the Info tab and then type in the new track information.

If you still have the CD, insert it into the computer, select it from the Library pop-up menu, and then click Options→Get CD Track Names to see if the Internet has any updated listings. (If the track is something deeply obscure or homemade, the Gracenote database that iTunes uses may not know the name, either.)

YOU DON’T HAVE TO adjust your track information on a song-by-song basis. You can edit an entire album’s worth of tracks simultaneously by clicking the album name in the iTunes column browser (or by clicking its cover in Album view) and pressing Ctrl+I (⌘-I) to bring up the Get Info box.

Ever careful, iTunes flashes an alert box asking if you really want to change the info for a bunch of things at once. Click Yes.

You can make all sorts of changes to an album in the four-tabbed box that pops up. Here are a few examples:

TO CREATE A PLAYLIST, press Ctrl+N (⌘-N) in iTunes. You can also choose File→New→Playlist or click the button in the bottom-left corner of the iTunes window.

All freshly minted playlists start out coldly named “playlist.” Fortunately, iTunes highlights this generic moniker so it’s ready for editing—just type in a better name: “Cardio Workout,” “Hits of the Highland Lute,” or whatever you want to call it. As you add playlists, iTunes alphabetizes them in the Playlists area of the Source list.

Once you create and name a spanking-new playlist, you’re ready to add songs or videos. You can do so several ways, so choose the one you like best.

Playlist-Making Method #1

When you choose the New Playlist option, iTunes 11 pops open a panel on the right side of its window. This is your blank canvas to create a sonic masterpiece. At the top of the column, type the name you want to use for your new playlist if you haven’t done so already. Make sure the pop-up menu on the left side of the iTunes window is set to Music. Now, click around the tabs at the top of the iTunes library window (Songs, Albums, Artists, and so on) and drag the songs or albums into the playlist column. Drag songs one at a time, or grab a bunch by selecting tracks one after the other; just Ctrl-click (⌘-click) each title. Click the Done button when you’re finished.)

Playlist-Making Method #2

Want a way to keep adding new songs to an existing playlist? Highlight the songs you want to add in the main iTunes window (Ctrl-click [⌘-click] each one) and then drag them over to the right side of the iTunes window—which conveniently pops open the playlist panel for you to drop the songs onto the playlist of your choice.

If your iPad is connected to iTunes, click its icon in the iTunes window and click On This iPad on the next screen. Click the Add To button on the right side of the window to reveal a pane showing the iPad’s contents. Click the Playlists button and drag your mixes from the left side of the window onto the iPad’s pane.

IF YOU CHANGE YOUR mind about a playlist’s tune order, drag the song titles up or down within the playlist window. Just make sure to sort the playlist by song order first (click the top of the first column, the one with the numbers listed in front of the song titles).

You can always drag more songs into a playlist by selecting the songs and dragging them to the right side of the iTunes window. When you do, a hidden panel opens to reveal a list of existing playlists; drop the tracks onto the playlist you want to use.

When you click the Playlists button in the main iTunes window (and select a mix from the column on the left side), you can also click the Add To button on the right side of the window to go into playlist-editing mode, as shown here. You can re-sort the songs, add new ones, delete old ones (select a title and hit the Delete key), and get that mix into playing shape. To see a selected playlist’s tracks displayed in List, Album, or Artists view, click the View button and pick one.

Another way to quickly add a song to an existing playlist right from the main iTunes window, no matter which view you happen to be using: Select the song, right-click (Control-click) it, and then, in the pop-up menu, choose “Add to Playlist.” Scroll to the playlist you want to enrich and then click the mouse button to add the track.

When you decide it’s time to remove a song or mix from your collection in iTunes, click the Playlists button to see your song sets. Click a song or playlist title, and then hit Delete or Backspace. When iTunes asks you to confirm your decision, click Yes. Remember, deleting a song or a playlist doesn’t delete the tracks from your music library—it just removes the title, or that particular playlist. (You can get rid of a song for good only by pressing Delete or Backspace from within the iTunes Music library, which you get to from the Library pop-up menu on the top-left side of the main window.)

PLAYLISTS ARE FUN to make, but occasionally you just don’t have the time or energy. If that’s the case, call in an expert—the iTunes Genius. With the Genius feature, you click any song you’re in the mood for and iTunes crafts a playlist of 25 to 100 songs that it thinks go well with the one you picked.

The first time you use it, Genius asks permission to go through your music collection and gather song information. Then it uploads that data to Apple. When your information has been analyzed (by software) and anonymously added to a giant database of everybody else’s song info (to improve the Genius’s suggestions), the Genius is ready for duty. Here’s the procedure:

iTunes saves the new Genius playlist in the same area as all your other playlists. Just click the Playlists button at the top of the iTunes window to see it. The Genius doesn’t work if it doesn’t have enough information about a song—or if there aren’t enough similar songs for it to draw from. In that case, pick another tune. If you frequently add new music to your library and want to get it in the mix, inform the Genius at Store→Update Genius.

YES, THE ITUNES GENIUS feature takes almost all the effort out of making a playlist—all you do is click the Genius button. But if even a one-button click seems like too much effort, iTunes makes playlist creation even easier. Welcome to Genius Mixes.

The Genius Mix feature works like this: iTunes takes it upon itself to search your entire music library and then automatically compose (depending on the size of your library) up to 12 song collections. Unlike a Genius playlist of songs calculated to go well together, a Genius Mix is more like a radio station or cable-TV music channel, with the music based on genre. Depending on what’s in your iTunes library, the Genius could present you with a hip-hop mix, a country mix, a classical mix, and so on. In addition, the Genius Mix creates up to 12 playlists at once, all saved and ready to play, unlike the Genius’s single mix that you have to save to preserve.

If you don’t already see a square purple Genius Mix icon () in your iTunes Source list, choose Store→Update Genius. Once activated, the Genius quietly stirs up its sonic concoctions from your music library.

To play a Genius Mix, click the Playlists button at the top of the iTunes window and click the Genius Mixes icon in the list on the left. iTunes displays the different mixes it’s created. It represents each by a quartet of album covers from tracks in the mix. Pass your mouse over the album squares to see the name of the mix, or click the squares to start playing the songs.

Like more traditional radio stations, you don’t get to see what’s actually in a particular Genius Mix—unless you know where to look. (To find out, go to Manage Your Expectations With Up Next, which explains iTunes’ Up Next feature.) If you don’t care for a song at the moment, playback controls on the Genius Mix album covers let you jump forward or backward in the mix.

Genius Mixes can be another great way to effortlessly toss on some background music at a party, and you may even hear songs you haven’t played in forever. Want to take the Genius Mix with you? Just sync it to your iPad.

ALTHOUGH THERE’S NO WAY to give a song two thumbs up in iTunes, you can assign an album—or each song in your collection—a rating of from one to five stars. Then you can use the ratings to produce playlists of nothing but the greatest hits on your hard drive.

First, a couple of notes: If you assign an album a rating, then all the songs on the album get the same number of stars. If you rate just a few tracks on an album, the album’s rating reflects the average of the rated songs—so an album with two five-star songs and a bunch of unrated tracks gets five stars. Now, to configure:

You can even rate songs on your iPad itself, and iTunes records the ratings the next time you sync up. To rate a song currently playing on your tablet, tap the tiny album cover at the top of the window to get to the New Playing screen. Tap the screen to summon the playback controls and tap the icon in the lower-right corner to get to the track list. Swipe the dots across the top of the screen until they turn into the corresponding number of stars you want to assign.

AS COOL AS THE Genius is, sometimes you want a little more control over what goes into your automatically generated music mixes. That’s where Smart Playlists rise to the occasion.

Once you give it some guidelines, a Smart Playlist goes sniffing through your music library and comes up with custom mixes based on those guidelines. A Smart Playlist even keeps tabs on the music that comes and goes from your library and adjusts itself based on that.

You might tell one Smart Playlist to assemble 45 minutes’ worth of songs that you’ve rated higher than four stars but rarely listen to, and another to play your most-often-played songs from the 1980s. The Smart Playlists you create are limited only by your imagination. (Flip back a page for more on ratings.)

A Smart Playlist is a dialogue between you and iTunes: You tell it what you want in as much detail as you want, and the program whips up a playlist according to your instructions.

You can even have a Smart Playlist pull tracks from your current Genius playlist. Just click the button to add a preference, choose Playlist as another criteria, and then select Genius from the list of available playlists.

SONGS YOU DOWNLOAD FROM the iTunes Store often include artwork—usually a picture of the album cover. iTunes displays the picture in just about every view but the text-based Songs list. But even if you rip most of your music from your own CD collection, you’re not stuck with artless tracks. You can ask iTunes to head to the Internet and find as many album covers as it can.

You need a (free) Apple account to make this work, so if you haven’t signed up yet, choose Store→Create Apple ID to get rolling. To make iTunes go fetch, choose File→Library→Get Album Artwork. Since Apple has to root around in your library to figure out which covers you need, you get an alert box warning you that the company will be getting (and then dumping) personal information from you (but it’s not laughing at your Bay City Rollers tracks).

If you have a huge library, this may take a little while. When iTunes finishes, you should have a healthy dose of album art filling up the iTunes window.

If iTunes can’t find certain album covers on its own, it displays a list of the missing artwork. You can use this helpful accounting to hunt for and place the art yourself. So, you ask, where do you handpick this artwork? In short: the Web.

Sites like Amazon are a great source of album covers. Here’s what to do:

EVER NOTICE SONGS in a playlist or in your iTunes library, (perhaps when searching for something), that you don’t remember buying? Good thing that iTunes keeps track of what you buy and when you buy it. If you suspect that one of the kids knows your password and is sneaking in forbidden downloads or that your credit card was wrongly charged, you can contact the Store or check your account’s purchase history to see what’s been downloaded in your name.

To do the latter, in the iTunes Store window, click your account name, log in, and then click View Account. On the Account Information screen, click See All next to Purchase History. Your latest purchases appear at the top of the page, and you can scroll farther down to see a list of previous acquisitions. Everything billed to your account over the months and years is there, including gift-certificate purchases. If you see something wrong, click the “Report a Problem” link to say something.

If you have other issues with your account or want to submit a specific query or comment, the online help center awaits. From the iTunes Store’s main page, click the Support link. Your web browser presents you with the main iTunes service and support page; click the link that best describes what you want to learn or complain about. For billing or credit card issues, check out the iTunes Account and Billing Support link on that same page.

THERE’S HOME SHARING, AND then there’s home, sharing. Many families have just one computer. If everyone uses the same copy of iTunes, you soon hear the Wiggles bumping up against the Wu-Tang Clan if you shuffle your music tracks or when you autosync multiple iPads. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a personal iTunes library to have and to hold, to sync and to shuffle—separately? Absolutely.

To use multiple iTunes libraries, follow these steps:

To switch among libraries, hold down the Shift (Option) key when you start iTunes, and you’ll get a box that lets you pick the library you want. (If you don’t choose a library, iTunes opens the last one used.) Content you copy goes into the library currently open. And now that you have those files in your new library, you can switch back to the old one and get rid of the tunes there.

MEDIA LIBRARIES GROW LARGE, and hard drives can seem to shrink as you add thousands of songs and hundreds of videos to iTunes. You may, in fact, think about using a big external drive for iTunes storage. That’s just dandy, but you need to make sure iTunes knows what you’re up to.

If you rudely drag your iTunes Media (or Music) folder to a different place without telling iTunes, it thinks the songs and videos in your collection are gone. The next time you start the program, you’ll find a newly created, empty Media/Music folder. (While iTunes remains empty but calm,you may be having heart palpitations as you picture your media collection vanishing in a puff of bytes.)

Before you move the Media/Music folder to a new drive, make sure iTunes has been putting all your songs and videos in the iTunes Media/Music folder by opening the Preferences box (Ctrl+comma [⌘-comma]) and confirming the folder location. Then:

Ignore the ominous warning (“This cannot be undone”) and let iTunes heave a complete copy of your iTunes folder to the external drive. Once you confirm that everything is in the new library, trash your old iTunes Media folder and empty the Recycle Bin or Trash to get all those gigs of hard drive space back.

IF YOU SPEND ANY amount of time online these days, there’s no escaping Facebook and Twitter as sources of breaking news, information, and sharing. Social media is here to stay.

Even though Ping, Apple’s attempt at a music-themed social network, flopped hard after two years, shutting down in September 2012, there are still ways to use the power of Facebook and Twitter to share your taste in music, movies, books, apps, and podcasts—right from the iTunes Store.

On just about any product page in the store, an arrow beside the Buy button offers a pop-up menu (circled below) with four ways to share your idea of a cool purchase: Tell a Friend (by email), Copy Link (for pasting into a blog or other online page), Share on Facebook, and Share on Twitter. Once you make your selection and share, your recipients and readers see the news and can click the link you so thoughtfully provided to that item in the Store.

Yes, using these links gives Apple free publicity by having you flog its wares. But sharing links from the Store can also help promote a small indie band, a new podcast, or a TV show you think your friends should be watching, too—so you can all talk about it online.

You can also tout your taste in the iPad versions of Apple’s iStores. In the top corner of any product page, tap the icon (circled above) to open a menu of sharing options: Mail, Messages, Twitter, Facebook, or the good old Copy option.

To use the Facebook and Twitter options, you need to have your accounts linked to the iPad’s Facebook (Use Facebook on the iPad) or Twitter (Use Twitter) apps in iOS 6. And if you haven’t set up Mail or Messages yet, take a stroll through Chapter 6.