iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache

[he...@att.net]

I started looking at some of the accumulation on my hard drive and came
across the Cache Folder inside Album Artwork in side iTunes, which
takes up 2.56 GB. Some of the folders in the Cache are almost 3 years
old. What are these files that end in .itc? Can I delete this Cache
folder?

[Lewis]

In message <261020152312168837%he...@att.net>

Yes, but it will rebuild, iirc.

--
Behind every great man there's a woman with a vibrator -- Hawkeye Pierce

[nospam]

it's artwork for your music.

[AV3]

Is that all it might contain? My iTunes has over ten thousand tracks,
almost all of which are covered by artwork and half by song text files,
but divided up into various alternative folder locations, and none of my
Album Artwork folders exceeds 100MB in size, half of them duplicates in
backup locations. OP seems to have some monster files in his Album
Artwork/Cache folder.


--
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++
||Arnold VICTOR, New York City, i. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||
||Arnoldo VIKTORO, Nov-jorkurbo, t. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||
||Remove capital letters from e-mail address for correct address/ ||
|| Forigu majusklajn literojn el e-poŝta adreso por ĝusta adreso ||
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++

[nospam]

In article <n0o8je$oej$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3

<arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> >> I started looking at some of the accumulation on my hard drive and came
> >> across the Cache Folder inside Album Artwork in side iTunes, which
> >> takes up 2.56 GB. Some of the folders in the Cache are almost 3 years
> >> old. What are these files that end in .itc? Can I delete this Cache
> >> folder?
> >
> > it's artwork for your music.
>
> Is that all it might contain?

what did you think it contains, given that it's called album artwork?

> My iTunes has over ten thousand tracks,
> almost all of which are covered by artwork and half by song text files,
> but divided up into various alternative folder locations, and none of my
> Album Artwork folders exceeds 100MB in size, half of them duplicates in
> backup locations. OP seems to have some monster files in his Album
> Artwork/Cache folder.

it will be different for everyone.

[AV3]

On 10/27/15, 12:29, nospam wrote:
> In article<n0o8je$oej$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3
> <arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> ...

>>>
>>> it's artwork for your music.
>>
>> Is that all it might contain?
>
> what did you think it contains, given that it's called album artwork?

That is what I'm asking. Since his cache folder is twenty-five times the
size of my Album Artwork folders combined, and I have artwork for more
than ten thousand tracks, what indeed does his folder contain? Does he
have that many more tracks covered by album cover artwork or something
else?


The great majority of my album cover files are imported from artwork
files in Amazon and other sources of music which I have loaded into
iTunes, not from album cover files supplied by iTunes when importing
those files. I occasionally overrule artwork supplied by Apple in favor
of the correct album cover supplied from outside. I supposed those
outside-sourced cover pictures would be larger than files native to
iTunes, but I never investigated the relative sizes. I wonder what is
the source of his files.

>
>> My iTunes has over ten thousand tracks,
>> almost all of which are covered by artwork and half by song text files,
>> but divided up into various alternative folder locations, and none of my
>> Album Artwork folders exceeds 100MB in size, half of them duplicates in
>> backup locations. OP seems to have some monster files in his Album
>> Artwork/Cache folder.
>
> it will be different for everyone.

So it seems, and to an unreasonable degree.

[Lewis]

In message <n0othv$1vr$1...@news.albasani.net>

AV3 <arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 10/27/15, 12:29, nospam wrote:
>> In article<n0o8je$oej$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3
>> <arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> ...
>>>>
>>>> it's artwork for your music.
>>>
>>> Is that all it might contain?
>>
>> what did you think it contains, given that it's called album artwork?


> That is what I'm asking. Since his cache folder is twenty-five times the
> size of my Album Artwork folders combined, and I have artwork for more
> than ten thousand tracks, what indeed does his folder contain? Does he
> have that many more tracks covered by album cover artwork or something
> else?

Something else, probably. Your artwork is almost certainly stored in the
metadata of the tracks, not in the album artwork cache. The cache will
also store album art for tracks that are streamed, for podcasts, and
quite possibly for artwork of albums searched for in the store.

> The great majority of my album cover files are imported from artwork
> files in Amazon and other sources of music which I have loaded into
> iTunes,

And how large is each of those files? For example, the album cover for
Revolver that i use is 306Kb. If all my covers were that size, then
10,000 albums would take up 3,060,000K (just short of 3GB).

> So it seems, and to an unreasonable degree.

What is unreasonable about it?


--
"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."

[AV3]

As a matter of fact, I store all the cover art I have imported in a
single folder. There are 336 individual items, mostly sized in
double-digit KB, but several are 2-3MB files. Most are jpg-format, but I
noticed at least one tiff-format. The size of that storage folder is
27.5 GB, but the total files in the Album Artwork folders in my iTunes
folders is little more than 100 MB total, so I suppose that the size of
the cover art files I have imported into iTunes is drastically reduced
and possibly not represented in the contents of the Album Artwork folder.

>
>> So it seems, and to an unreasonable degree.
>
> What is unreasonable about it?

The OP reports his Album Artwoek/Cache folder at 2.5 GB, 25 times bigger
than my Album Artwork folders. Of course, he hasn't told us what is in
his Cache folder, so I am surmising that it contains something unlike
anything I have in mine.


>
>


--
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1038\cocoasubrtf290
{\fonttbl\f0\fmodern\fcharset238 Courier;}
{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;}
\margl1440\margr1440\vieww12620\viewh9000\viewkind0
\pard\tx560\tx1120\tx1680\tx2240\tx2800\tx3360\tx3920\tx4480\tx5040\tx5600\tx6160\tx6720\ql\qnatural

\f0\fs20 \cf0 -- \

++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++\
||Arnold VICTOR, New York City, i. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||\
||Arnoldo VIKTORO, Nov-jorkurbo, t. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||\
||Remove capital letters from e-mail address for correct address/ ||\

|| Forigu majusklajn literojn el e-po\uc0\u349 ta adreso por \u285
usta adreso || \
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++}

[Lewis]

In message <n0p69m$mvu$1...@news.albasani.net>

And? Why would you think they would be the same?


--
Han : You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake, well, this
could be it, sweetheart. Leia: I take it back.

[nospam]

In article <n0p69m$mvu$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3

<arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> >
> >> The great majority of my album cover files are imported from artwork
> >> files in Amazon and other sources of music which I have loaded into
> >> iTunes,
> >
> > And how large is each of those files? For example, the album cover for
> > Revolver that i use is 306Kb. If all my covers were that size, then
> > 10,000 albums would take up 3,060,000K (just short of 3GB).
>
>
> As a matter of fact, I store all the cover art I have imported in a
> single folder.

that's dumb. the artwork should be either in the songs themselves or
managed by itunes, which is what's happening with the original poster.

>
> The OP reports his Album Artwoek/Cache folder at 2.5 GB, 25 times bigger
> than my Album Artwork folders. Of course, he hasn't told us what is in
> his Cache folder, so I am surmising that it contains something unlike
> anything I have in mine.

his music library is not the same as yours. he also hasn't said how big
it is and how much of it has embedded artwork. why would you expect the
amount of artwork that's cached to be the same?

[AV3]

On 10/28/15, 8:27, nospam wrote:
> In article<n0p69m$mvu$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3
> <arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>>
>>>> The great majority of my album cover files are imported from artwork
>>>> files in Amazon and other sources of music which I have loaded into
>>>> iTunes,
>>>
>>> And how large is each of those files? For example, the album cover for
>>> Revolver that i use is 306Kb. If all my covers were that size, then
>>> 10,000 albums would take up 3,060,000K (just short of 3GB).
>>
>>
>> As a matter of fact, I store all the cover art I have imported in a
>> single folder.
>
> that's dumb. the artwork should be either in the songs themselves or
> managed by itunes, which is what's happening with the original poster.

Of course it is in the song files, but album pictures occasionally get
dislodged and I keep the original file to restore lost pictures. On a
couple of occasions iTunes has replaced my art work with what it
mistakenly thinks is a better picture, so I have the correct picture
available to restore the correct cover picture.


I have also burned CD's of downloaded albums and use the cover art to
print a cover picture for the CD box. This was recently helpful in
restoring an album purchased so long ago that it is no longer available
on my list of purchased albums.

>
>
>>
>> The OP reports his Album Artwoek/Cache folder at 2.5 GB, 25 times bigger
>> than my Album Artwork folders. Of course, he hasn't told us what is in
>> his Cache folder, so I am surmising that it contains something unlike
>> anything I have in mine.
>
> his music library is not the same as yours. he also hasn't said how big
> it is and how much of it has embedded artwork. why would you expect the
> amount of artwork that's cached to be the same?

I don't expect it to be the same, but the difference is surprisingly great.

--
++====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=====+====++
||Arnold VICTOR, New York City, i. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||
||Arnoldo VIKTORO, Nov-jorkurbo, t. e., <arvi...@Wearthlink.net> ||
||Remove capital letters from e-mail address for correct address/ ||

[nospam]

In article <n0qpj8$g1f$1...@news.albasani.net>, AV3

<arvi...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> >> As a matter of fact, I store all the cover art I have imported in a
> >> single folder.
> >
> > that's dumb. the artwork should be either in the songs themselves or
> > managed by itunes, which is what's happening with the original poster.
>
> Of course it is in the song files, but album pictures occasionally get
> dislodged and I keep the original file to restore lost pictures. On a
> couple of occasions iTunes has replaced my art work with what it
> mistakenly thinks is a better picture, so I have the correct picture
> available to restore the correct cover picture.

complete nonsense.

album artwork does not 'get dislodged' nor does itunes randomly replace
artwork unless you do something to force a replacement.

> I have also burned CD's of downloaded albums and use the cover art to
> print a cover picture for the CD box. This was recently helpful in
> restoring an album purchased so long ago that it is no longer available
> on my list of purchased albums.

the art is in the songs. you can use that.

> >> The OP reports his Album Artwoek/Cache folder at 2.5 GB, 25 times bigger
> >> than my Album Artwork folders. Of course, he hasn't told us what is in
> >> his Cache folder, so I am surmising that it contains something unlike
> >> anything I have in mine.
> >
> > his music library is not the same as yours. he also hasn't said how big
> > it is and how much of it has embedded artwork. why would you expect the
> > amount of artwork that's cached to be the same?
>
> I don't expect it to be the same, but the difference is surprisingly great.

you have no idea what's in his library.

[John McWilliams]

What I would do: Compress the folder. Delete the original, keeping the
.zip file. Restart iTunes. Check critical albums' artwork. If all ok,
delete the .zip file or move it to archive. A new folder will appear and
start accumulating cruft - I mean, cache.

[Robert Peirce]

On 10/28/15 2:01 PM, John McWilliams wrote:
> What I would do: Compress the folder. Delete the original, keeping the
> .zip file. Restart iTunes. Check critical albums' artwork. If all ok,
> delete the .zip file or move it to archive. A new folder will appear and
> start accumulating cruft - I mean, cache.

I tried that and some of my artwork was gone, so I unzipped it and some
of my artwork was still gone.

This stuff was originally stored in the meta-data for the album. How can
it get lost? This has happened before, not to a lot of albums but to
some. I restore it and later some other album has lost its artwork.

iTunes also loses track of where the album is located but that is a
different problem.

[John McWilliams]

It probably still is, but you've done some custom "work" on the way you
use iTunes, and that may be the problem.

I would now simply quarantine those Bolshevik albums and play on.

If iTunes loses track, do you?