Tip: How to disable Genius in iTunes 8
Here’s how to disable the new Genius sidebar in iTunes 8:
In iTunes 8, choose Turn Off Genius in the Store menu.
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by John Blackburn
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PLEASE send instruction how to disable the Genius part of the iTunes upgrade.
I do NOT want Genius, I prefer making my own list of songs..and not being directly connected to the store.
I simply was updating my software, per the automatic notification…and got stuck with Genius.
There was no clear disconnect icon in the iTunes store.
Thanks for this. Pretty simple actually, but not obvious…
go to the itunes store menu at the top and then click on turn off genius
I too got stuck with genius and if that’s genius I
am Einstein. I like the surprises of “shuffle”
Great site,found you on Google
Kind Regards
Carole
I NEED HELP
How do I get the view with Gender/Artist/Album and all the songs on the bottum? iTunes 8 is driving me crazy!
Kev, do this in iTunes 8:
1. Select Music in the Library section on the left side of the window.
2. Click the center of the three view buttons in the upper-right corner of the window.
3. You should now see tab buttons for Albums/Artists/Genres/Composers
Thx for your fast help John Blackburn,
I’ve done what you told me, but this isn’t what I tried to have back. I’m looking for this “eye like button” which iTunes7 had on the bottom right, where the genius button is now. I don’t like the covers, it takes to long to load and is less convenient then a list. To me at least. And the List alone is just nonsense when u have a some what big library. Am I the only one with this problem? If I hadn’t just bought an iPhone, I would change back to 7.
I’ve found it out!
It was very simple:
Go to “View -> Show Browser”
Uff, so happy to have it back to the way I like it best!
Thanks for the tip.
The Genius is more of an irritant than help.
If music in your iTunes Library is NOT in the iTunes Store… most of mine… then you get error messages.
Or the suggestions hopelessly off…
Or it simply lists best sellers in the particular genre.
Sorry Genius, but if you keep telling me about Andrea Bocelli, then CLEARLY you’re no genius. And certainly lack taste.
I can’t find the “turn off genius” button in the itunes store on the store menu, I want to turn genius off and I have Itunes version 8.
I would LOVE to turn Genius off, as it keeps freezing iTunes, but my “Turn Genius Off” under the Store menu is grayed out and I cannot click it. How do I turn this thing off so I can listen to my music?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Mark,
On the bottom right of itunes, there should be an arrow that opens your Genius sidebar back up. Click on that so that the Genius sidebar is showing. Then try going to Store >> Turn Genius Off again. It should no longer be grayed out. I had the same problem and this worked for me.
If it’s grayed out, that might mean it’s currently updating. If so, click the X on the right side of the info pane at the top to stop the updating process, then choose Store > Turn Genius off.
THANK YOU, thank you, thank you. What a horrible addition. Ever since Genius popped up with my last update iTunes has been bogging down my computer. Anytime I want to listen to music off iTunes or plug in my iPod it just sends my compy into snail pace. A G5 Mac without many installed programs too. Not a shabby computer. It was so irritating!
Can the genius sidebar be manually updated? I’m trying to get a feel for it before I decide if I like it or not. I just bought a bunch of songs and can’t get Genius to work for it. Itunes keeps telling me to update Genius through the itunes store. I have no clue how to do this. Please help!
Thanks for this tip, I found your site through Google. The Genius “feature” is horrible and bogs everything down with it’s constant updating. I am so glad to finally have it turned off.
Click on Store in left sidebar
Select Store menu at the top of the Window
Select “Turn off Genius” menu item
i wish there was a way to just delete the OPTION of genius from my itunes
its so annoying it just BEING there. even if it is off…
it definitely ruins the fun of finding music in the first place.
Just a note for those trying to turn off iTunes Genius. You’ll have to wait for it to complete it’s first download of results before the Store –> Turn Off Genius option is available.
Genius was a pain, so grateful for this site able to disable at last thank you
Genius kept freezing itunes and then crashing itunesand then freezing my whole computer when itunes had to restart. thx for how to disable genius cause its wotrkin like a charm now
O.K. for months all fine, have not had a problem, but for the past 12 hours I have been trying to turn genius off, just having a Pat Metheny selection did not suit my needs,it would not suggest anything else, the spinning arrows have been turning for hours, and the turn off is greyed out whether the sidebar is on or off… I do have 12 gb of data in iTunes.
Any advice would be welcome, thank you.
Kelv.
thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Genius is an annoying wanna-be Pandora.
Genius actually worked well for a while, why does it now take forever to load Genius results?
I actually liked creating quick lists with Genius because it was easy and didn’t take very long, but now it is horrible!!
I had to disable the function!
Did I download something that I shouldn’t have or do I need to download an upgrade?
Also, what is Safari?
It looks like most of you guys are using a pc, and i know there are people who have a mac
okay… to disable/Enable Genuis:
——>On the top finder bar there are pull-down menus, File Edit Etc. click on the “Store” tab and about halfway down there is an option to “Turn on Genius/Turn off Genius” hope that helps you mac users!
Genius has been sending information to apple for about 5 minutes – does it do this every time u load up itunes? if so i am turning this off! Cool site, found you on google – annoying that I can’t turn off Genius until it has stopped synching!!!!!!!!!!! grr!
everytime i plug my i pod in to sync it up it says that the library doesnt go with my i pod how do i resolve this?any help would be great,the first time i plugged my i pod in it erased all my songs? thanks pete
I seriously could not hate Genius more! Thank you though for your comments – I about fainted when my turn off genius was grayed out, then learned the way way around it – I’m still waiting for it to update so I can get rid of it!
Whenever I open iTunes, Genius updates and then freezes the whole program when it gets 4/5 of the way. HELP!!!!
Stuart!
thanks man.
genius is horrible.
In the Mac version you find the switch to deactivate Genius in the top pop-down menu (not in the iTunes window) under “Store”.
stuart! thank you. everyone here was saying the “store menu,” and i couldn’t find it at all. thanks for the tip for mac! and yea, genius is terrible. it made my itunes freeze constantly
Thank you! Who the hell thought it was a good idea to leave that out of ‘Preferences’ and stick it in a menu I never need to go in is beyond me.
Genius is far from it.
I would like to deactivate the button on the bottom right. I thought it was the iTunes visualizer when I first it and accidentally clicked it, not realizing I was turning on genius, obviously this has been done on purpose for exactly that result.
Disgusting. Genius == spyware, it’s just another nasty little way to phone home.
Genius is annoying, intrusive and it doesn’t even work. Thanks for sharing the facts on how to shut it down. A very un-Apple feature I wish I’d never installed!
finally, i just clicked the X on the right side of the info pane at the top to stop the updating process, then choosed Store > Turn Genius off.
thanks to creg
Genius without a doubt had to have been one of the worst additions yet to an already horrible music management tool. I haven’t had an application perform this poorly since installing Norton Utilities back in ‘97. Is computer lockup while iTunes doesn’t tell you what it’s doing a feature? It happens often enough to make me think it is.
Until my 1st gen Touch dies, I am again forced to use iTunes for updating it… something in the last software update prevents Mediamonkey from properly managing album art. I know this has to do with an Apple update, because Mediamonkey still works flawlessly on my wife’s Touch.. which we thankfully haven’t updated. I just wish iTunes would stop scrambling my music library, Mediamonkey does a fantastic job of straightening it out, but its a real inconvenience having to do it over and over.
Very nice mp3 players, but there is no way I will ever select an Apple product again.
I am curious…will check around but I ran into this after trying to disable genius, thanks! I hated that and well I do believe that I am performing better without a service that I thought would be of use, my brother swears by it, but it sucks!
I am trying to find out about like hiding certain items, say I want to hide a genre but see the rest of my library, is there a way to disable or hide a genre/artist/album etc. Thanks!
Matt
I’ll join the chorus — Genius totally bogged down my (admittedly) older computer. Thanks a ton for help in turning it off for good. –
Cheers,
Mike
I can’t fiind where is says “turn off genious”!!! Please help me!
Turning off genuis is very simple just follow these 2 steps if your using PC for itunes.
1. look at the very top of the itunes screen you should see file,edit,view,control,store,advance,help,
2. Click on the store drop down menu and scroll down untill you see turn off genius. that’s it!!!
* if your having trouble find store simply look at the top of the screen for a play button if you see the play button look above that and you should see file,edit,view,store,advance,help.
hope this helped, ~alwayz asia~
i cant turn genius off. i try to stop it from updating but it freezes itunes what should i do i really hate the genius
My iTunes won’t open without trying to update so I can’t turn it off because it is in use, and it freezing because the update will not finish it just stops responding. Pressing the gray X only freezes it, as well as attempting to play a song or video. I use a PC so If you could help me find a way around this I would really like to hear my music again.
I haven’t seen any response for the problem I’m having – iTunes 9 freezes when it sends its update to Genius. I CANNOT close genius by going to store menu because the option is grayed out. I also cannot click the X in the top center box as that makes it freeze immediately. I’m using a PC w/ Vista. Very frustrating. I haven’t had iTunes working properly in months.
I’m having the same problem as Andrew (above). The only difference is that I’m running iTunes on a PC with XP.
to disable genius. At store tab the ‘turn off genius’ will not respond.
i cannot get any of these tips to work! everytime i pull up itunes, it freezes before genius is done “sending info to itunes”!! it is annoying the crap out of me! plz help!
o and mine is i just like andrews right above, i have itunes 9
Can anyone help? Please?
Also having the same problem, it has been sending information to itunes for roughly 8 hours, please help!
I cannot stop genius from loading, I press the X button, but nothing happens. My turn off is greyed out. My itunes is sooooo slow. How do i stop it from loading. I am running itunes 9 on a mac 10.4.11.
genuis is shut off but HOW DO I ERASE THE SONGS FROM MY SHUFFLE? restroring only erases all the songs, not the ones from genius…what do i do?
Hey guys,
Called itunes folks, and here’s a solution if you’re stuck like I am and you can’t turn off Genius and it freezes while trying to send info to apple.
Go to the apple support webpage and look for “Using MSCONFIG to troubleshoot conflicts in Windows Vista and Windows 7″. I’m sure you can probably find it for XP or whatever you are using.
Turns out that other programs on your computer can prevent itunes from sending info to apple. I followed the instructions to turn off all the other programs running in the background. Started up iTunes (worked!) then shut off genius once it booted properly. Issue solved! Hope this helps.