I love the Mini player. My family loves the Mini Player. When I used the old version of iTunes getting into and out of the Mini player was second nature. Because iTunes 12 changed everything I'm going to take you through a quick tutorial on how to manage the Mini player window.
When you first open the new iTunes you are greeted with a much different screen. The look and feel has changed and the sidebar has, for the most part, disappeared. I won't go into the changes here but for those that haven't loaded it yet here's the new look.
If you are a die hard keyboard user you can also use the key combination listed in the menu. But if you are used to just clicking a button like me you can use the secret hidden button I finally discovered.
If you hover your mouse in the center of the iTunes window where the Apple logo is located a small icon appears. Click on it and your view will change to the Mini Player.
So how do you return to the normal player you ask? Good question, and counter to intuition all you need to do is hit the "X" in the upper left corner of the Mini player. The Mini player window will close and the full sized view will return.
So what happens if you are playing music? What then? Well the look changes a bit but the action is the same. Again hover the mouse in top, center of the screen but this time over the album artwork.
There you have it. A quick guide to handling iTunes and switching between the large view and Mini player view of your media. Aren't you glad I figured it all out for you? I know my family is. And since I don't handle family insurrection well I am too. Now everyone is happy.
Yes, I am very glad; thanks so much for this! The 'X' button in the upper left to open the large view from the mini player is massively counter intuitive! Also, I would have never found the button (on top of art??) to return to the mini player in a million years. View buttons should always be in the corners and preferably on top. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteLeave it to Apple to do things completely counter intuitive!
DeleteJesus. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI literally had to search and look for this answer... Way to fail at intuitive design, iTunes, yet again... Oh and thanks for the solution.
ReplyDeleteSame! that should never be the case with something so basic... especially from Apple where it's all about intuitive design
DeleteThanks a lot!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent!
ReplyDeleteI guess that Steve is fuming on his iCloud to see how his legacy is handled: where is the intuitive design? It uses to be a USP of apple..
Thank you for figuring this one (two) out!
Thank you!.... I was worried that this feature was no longer available after updating to 12.0... Whew.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post!! If it didn't exist, I would still be getting on my nerves with this little stupid thing...
ReplyDeleteGreat, thank you!
More change for change's sake?
ReplyDeleteI'm still fuming from when the keyboard shortcut to miniplayer became a three key combo.
THANK YOU!!!!!!! Knowing this saved my sanity :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I rally needed this and continue to foolishly fumble with multiple clicks. It's not very intuitive. Now I just need to find how to set a default speaker output and then I'd be happy. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this solution. Its been driving me crazy since the update, I thought Apple had completely removed the mini player, thank god its still there. So much for Apple being all about ease of use, the hidden button and the X button to switch the the full player are really counterintuitive!
ReplyDeletethank you!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks. But my problem is I then get BOTH players, normal & mini (the normal one stays open). Any idea why?
ReplyDeleteLook at the Window menu. There is a choice for iTunes, Equalizer, Mini Player, and Downloads, but there is also a Switch to Mini Player below those choices (the keyboard shortcut is Shift-CMD-M).
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I tried when looking for the mini player was going to the upper right corner of the main iTunes window and pressing the 2 diagonal arrows (where the mini player button used to be). BIG MISTAKE! iTunes went into Full Screen mode. It took 5 minutes and a couple of web searches to figure out how to get out of Full Screen mode in iTunes (Shift-CMD-F). Why did apple have to remove the simple one-click switch to mini player button???? Thanks Apple! You really screwed up this version of iTunes without adding any real improvements. Why can't you just leave things alone once we've gotten used to them?
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post. And I can't believe this is the design the geniuses at Apple came up with. Sometimes I think those folks need something else to keep them busy: you can only improve on these applications so much before your changes start to make thing much more complicated than they need to be.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!! why would they hide one of the best features?!
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU SO MUCH I had been googling how to put it back into normal view but the x button was looking terrifying so I wasn't quite sure what to do. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteBut at least it's pretty. :-(
ReplyDeleteAn "X" is the universal sign for Close Window... but here it's to open the larger miniplayer rather than close it altogether? Effin' horrible. No wonder I had to search for the answer.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!!!
ReplyDeleteDanke!
ReplyDeleteLike it makes any difference, but I'm also irritated by new itunes UX - I use my old computer so I can have color icons and correspondence between itunes mini window and large one - i.e. choose 'next' in the small window and see that the selected tune large window does not change.
ReplyDelete