Turn off iTunes Gapless Playback

Is Apple turning into another Microsoft? They deride anything Microsoft does and poke a lot of fun at them with their hilarious Mac VS PC ads, but maybe that’s all just smoke and mirrors, because they are taking a page right from the Redmond boys and adding feature upon feature to their iTunes software, making it use so much memory that it has become a complete dog. It isn’t as bad as Windows Vista yet (Vista is pathetic…more about that another time) but like most Windows software, it has too much crap that hardly anyone needs.

Gapless playback is the latest feature that they thought everyone needed. We don’t.

Gapless playback is always on in iTunes 7 or later unless the Crossfade feature is turned on. If Crossfade is on, only audio files that have the “Part of a gapless album” option checked and are capable of being played gaplessly will play with no gaps.

The best default setting is to turn Gapless Playback off and adjust the crossfade to personal preference. I actually use a plug-in for iTunes called Bossa. I can totally control my music with it, make schedules and playlists all while iTunes runs in the background. I just use the crossfader and set the segue to what sounds right to me. You can actually use the crossfader to make Abbey Road sound like it was meant to be. It takes a little effort setting the crossfade, but it’s so much better than Gapless Playback!

Here’s how to turn Gapless Playback off.

1. Open iTunes
2. Select all songs in your library – “Ctrl + A” on a PC – Apple key on the Mac
3. Right Click and select “Get Info” – It will warn you about editing all files
4. Check the “Gapless Album” box and set it to “No”
5. Click “OK” and your files should quickly update
6. To avoid even having to do this….don’t upgrade past iTunes 6

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29 thoughts on “Turn off iTunes Gapless Playback

  1. Jim Crist

    I tried to turn off gapless for my entire library on ITunes 7.4.2, but the same hanging-up and freezing during the analyzing process occurs…strangely on groups and songs beginning with “St.” Anyway, I want my nice stable 7.0.2 version back, but every site purporting to have it quickly bumps me over to Apple where the choice seems only to be 7.4.2. Can you advise where I can truly download 7.0.2?

    Thanks

    Reply
  2. mv Post author

    Check out http://www.filehippo.com In the audio and video box, click on itunes 7.4.2 (don’t worry it won’t start downloading). On the right side it offers you every version of iTunes all the way back to 4.8

    Personally I went back to 4.9 cause once I went past 5.0 it started messing things up. 4.9 is iTunes light. It’s a great media player but forget about buying songs from the iTunes store, cause Apple won’t sell songs to people running old versions of their software. Who cares about paying 99 cents for crappy AAC files anyway.

    If you roll back you’ll need to make sure you delete all the iTunes files on your computer because just uninstalling isn’t enough. After you uninstall just do a search for all iTunes files and folder (including hidden ones). Make sure you do not delete your iTunes music library folder though since this is the folder with all your music.

    Good luck.

    Reply
  3. Jim Crist

    The file…iTunesSetup.exe…seems to be for a PC operating system and I am running Mac, or do I have that wrong? Sorry, I neglected to mention that earlier. Is there a Mac site/link I could use?

    Reply
  4. Jorge

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!

    I don’t like Apple normally, but I bought an iPod, downloaded their craptastic software and had trouble with it. In previous versions, this iTunes crap meddled with my library and I had to manually turn that off too. Annoying.

    Reply
  5. T

    A tip to everyone, when itunes is running, press ctrl alt delete and set itunes.exe ‘s priority to low if it crashes your whole computer when trying to determine gapless playback,
    the fact they havent installed a tick box for “Do not determine gapless playback” is just a massive fuck you to everyone that buys an ipod, i will never get another mac product again, the only reason i bought one in the first place is that they were the only solid state mp3 device to begin with, and most non solid states skip on my motorbike,
    now there are far better ones, that are cheaper, forget ipod,

    Reply
  6. Jeph

    Man, this is such bullshit. I hate Windows AND iTunes now. I have all my music stored on a network drive, and Vista refuses to save my password. Each time I start up my computer, I have to re-enter my password.

    Not only is that bad enough, each time I start up itunes, I have to click that goddamn X, which lags down my PC until it stops.

    This guide worked for me once,and now its not working anymore. PISS.

    Reply
  7. Jeff

    Gapless is actually VERY useful depending on the music you listen to.

    Continous albums, symphonics, experimental albums, they’re all ruined if there’s no gapless.

    I.E. Dream Theater’s Reprise to Grand Finale in Six Degrees and Camille’s entire experimental album, Le Fil.

    Regardless, for people who don’t want gapless, this is helpful. Gapless is a great option for those who need it though.

    Reply
  8. mv Post author

    I agree that it’s useful if you’re listening to albums that don’t have a gap between songs. But, you can select which ones you need gapless playback for, you don’t need or want it for most of the music in your iTunes library.

    Reply
  9. Scott Slanda

    Jeff should be an engineer for MS/Apple. He has the exact “I know what’s best for you” attitude they’re looking for.
    The problem with Gapless is that they make it almost impossible to turn the darned thing off. Not every computer user is stupid, but software programmers at MS/Apple are constantly assuming that we are, and that they know what’s best for us.

    Reply
  10. CHD

    This doesn’t work on ITunes 8 windows x64. has to be the most retarded thing i have ever seen. I have looked for a reliable way to get rid of this for months. i.nconspicuo.us whine somewhere else.

    Reply
  11. Kobnhavn

    Gapless playback is the most useless feature if you can not turn it off. With a library of over 30,000 files, it takes days for it to get through and my computer becomes useless.

    I can’t even get through the wholesale update recommended, since if freezes somewhere halfway through when updating the option to no.

    Reply
  12. DJ.Decksperiment

    So I ask my 11 year old daughter, “what do you want for your birthday..”? She replies.. “An ipod with all your mixes on it daddy.. ” – so I spent 250 quid on it, only 2 find the only thing I could actually do with it that made sense, was smash the fucker off the wall, which I didnt of course, but gave it to my M.O.D. standards electronics engineer of a son to find out how to make this as usefull as a tape recorder.. he’s half way through reverse engineering the onboard ic’s, and he’s only 9 years old, when done, mac are screwed!!! Once done, the ipod system will be open scource..

    FCuk APPLE, FCuk MACS, And dont sell mac users nowt!!!

    Reply
  13. ipodsAnditunesMasochist

    This doesn’t work. I have a mere 13000 songs only but this cripples itunes and i can’t even use it. To be able to use it i need to wait 10 minutes or more while itunes scans 200 odd numbers of songs for gapless playback or w/e the hell it’s doing. What’s worst is if i open any audio file with itunes that isn’t in the library it will trigger gapless playback scanning thus, cripples itunes.

    What other program can i use to buy my music that isn’t as painful as itunes, because though all us itune users are masochists, i’m getting sick and tired of this shit.

    Reply
  14. Paul

    I cannot believe no one has mentioned this yet, but go get yourself a free copy of Media Monkey, or pay a few bucks for a lifetime license of the Gold version. In either case, you can basically replace your iTunes software with a much better piece of software that is more robust, extensible, deals with duplicate files intelligently, and so much more. Do it!

    Reply
  15. ITUNES SUCKS

    I have given up on Itunes, i don’t even use my ipod now because of my hatred for this gapless playback garbage. I enjoyed using my Ipod. Is there a different media player out there that can manage music on an ipod? I have been using my blackberry for an MP3 player and i miss my Ipod.

    P.S. Apple blows, i thought macs were cool back in the day, now they are just a sh*t bag, p*ss poor excuse for a comp. Itunes needs to stop, reevaluate there POS software and simplify it, or just make one for teenage girls and one for people who don’t want itunes wasting half of their cpu usage.

    Apple sucks!

    Reply
  16. anon

    Wow, what a wanker stealing someone else’s work and posting on his site like his own (and copyrighting it!). Boycott this crap!

    Reply
  17. Anon

    ^^Who gives a fuck? The important thing is that this information gets out to people who need it.

    Intellectual property is dead.

    Reply

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