How to turn off iTunes 8’s store arrows

If you use iTunes, you’ve probably spotted those little arrows in circles that appear next to certain columns in the currently selected track. When you click them, you’re taken to the album or artist on the iTunes Store:

If you remember, iTunes 7 and earlier gave you a Preferences option to turn them off. And rightly so – they clutter up the UI in my opinion.

However, for some bizarre (no doubt marketing-related) reason, Apple removed this option from the Preferences dialog in iTunes 8. Thanks guys. 😉

Fortunately, there’s still a way to turn the arrows off. Quit iTunes, open a Terminal window, and type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool false

Now relaunch iTunes. The arrows will be gone. To turn them on again, type:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool true

Not so fast…

Before you turn the arrows off, though, you may be surprised to learn that they do, in fact, do more than just take you to the iTunes Store.

This post on macosxhints.com contains a couple of comments which taught me something new: You can actually Option-click an iTunes Store arrow to find stuff in your library. Option-click a track name column or album column arrow to get a list of all tracks in an album; Option-click an artist column arrow to view all tracks by an artist.

So those arrows are actually useful after all! In fact, by changing another hidden preference, you can swap the behaviour of clicking/Option-clicking:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool true

Now clicking the arrows takes you to the album or artist in your library, while Option-clicking jumps to the Store.

Obviously, you can revert back to the original behaviour by typing:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool false

And there you go! The hidden delights of those little arrows.

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8 Responses to “How to turn off iTunes 8’s store arrows”

  1. Ted Landry Says:

    well written, helpful info… thanks!

  2. Matt Says:

    You’re welcome Ted – glad it helped!

  3. Kurt Says:

    How about a way to turn off the “just for you” section in the iTunes store?

  4. Matt Says:

    @Kurt: I’m not seeing the “Just for You” section at all in my iTunes store – maybe Apple has scrapped it?

  5. Paul Says:

    Hi. Is this only for OSx as I don’t get any extra info right clicking on the arrow, I just have the same options anywhere on the song.
    I have read somewhere else how to get rid of the store arrow in Vistas itunes.

  6. Matt Says:

    @Paul: See http://www.tipstrs.com/tip/7974/remove-store-arrows-in-iTunes

  7. John Says:

    Thank you!

    I recently upgraded to an Intel Mac, trying to put everything back the way it was on the three year old version of iTunes which I was perfectly happy with was driving me nuts. Those arrows had to go.

  8. Matt Says:

    @John: No problem, I’m happy the tip worked for you. 🙂