Free up extra iPod space by removing artwork

Jul 19, '06 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: ChurchEAC

If you're running out of space on your iPod and have an iPod that can display album art, here's a quick tip that can buy you back some room. Instead of using the album art that is embedded in the audio file, the iPod is actually using its own database file to store album art. Depending on the size of your iPod and the total amount of songs you have on it, this Database can grow quite large.

To reclaim that space, simply go into the iPod preferences in iTunes and uncheck the 'Display Album Art' option. When I did this on my 60GB iPod 5G that had about 20MB free, I was able to reclaim over 1.5GB (yes, that's GB).

I have tested and verified this with a 60GB iPod 5G and a 4GB iPod nano that were formatted for a Mac. However, this should work with all iPods that can display album art and regardless of Mac or PC format.

[robg adds: From an older hint and its associated comments, you might also see some space savings by unchecking the Artwork tag in the Get Info box -- apparently the MP3 tags also contain information on the artwork, even though the iPod is using a database to track it. Given the age of the hint, I'm not sure if it's still relevant or not; please comment if you have more info on the subject.]

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