If you have a large iTunes music library, you may be curious to know just how many hours of music you actually have. iTunes does not show the total playtime for your entire music collection by default, but there are a couple easy ways to see and calculate the total hours of music you have in iTunes.
In this article, we’ll walk through the steps to view the total playtime for all your music in iTunes, as well as how to calculate it manually based on song counts. We’ll also look at how to see playtime info for individual songs and playlists. Let’s dive in!
View Total Music Playtime in iTunes
The easiest way to see the total playtime for all the music in your iTunes library is to use a Smart Playlist:
- Open iTunes and click on Music in the top left corner.
- Go to File > New > Smart Playlist.
- In the Smart Playlist window, set the filter to “Media Kind is Music” and check the “Live updating” box.
- Click OK to create the playlist. It will now show all the music in your library.
- At the bottom of the window, you’ll see the total playtime for the entire music library.
This Smart Playlist aggregates all your music files and shows you the total playtime. It will update automatically as you add or remove music from your iTunes Library.
Manually Calculate Playtime
You can also manually calculate the total playtime for your iTunes music library based on the number of songs:
- Go to Music and look at the total number of songs in your library (displayed in the top right corner).
- Estimate the average playtime per song. For most music, this is around 4 minutes.
- Multiply the number of songs by 4 to get the total playtime in minutes.
- Divide the total playtime in minutes by 60 to convert it to hours.
For example, if you have 2,000 songs:
- 2,000 songs x 4 minutes per song = 8,000 minutes
- 8,000 minutes / 60 minutes per hour = 133 hours
So for a 2,000 song library, the total playtime would be around 133 hours.
This gives you a rough estimate of your total music library playtime. For greater accuracy, you can use the actual average playtime of your songs rather than 4 minutes.
See Playtime For Individual Songs and Playlists
You can also view the playtime details for individual songs and playlists:
Individual Songs
- Right click on any song in your library and choose Song Info.
- In the Info window, look at the Playtime field to see that song’s length.
This will show the playtime in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Playlists
- Open a playlist, then hover over the playlist name at the top.
- The total playtime for that playlist will be displayed.
This makes it easy to see the runtime for curated playlists in your library.
Use Play Stats for More Detailed Insight
For even more detailed statistics on your iTunes music playback, enable Play Stats:
- Go to Account > Playback Information.
- Turn on the Setting switch for Play Stats.
This will start tracking your music listening history within iTunes:
- Go to Account > Play Stats to see playback stats for your entire library including total play count.
- You can also right-click on any song or playlist to choose Stats to see individual play details.
With Play Stats enabled, you can get advanced analytics on your music listening and iTunes library over time.
Use Third Party Apps for More Play Data
In addition to the built-in options in iTunes, there are various third party apps that provide expanded statistics and information on your iTunes music library:
MediaMonkey
MediaMonkey is a popular alternative to iTunes which offers in-depth analytics on your music collection including play count, last played date, and total playtime. You can view library stats and individual track info.
Winamp
Winamp is another music player and library manager that provides detailed media info overlays and play tracking. You can tag your files and see more data like bitrates, sample rates, etc.
mp3tag
mp3tag allows you to view and edit ID3 tag metadata for all your media files. You can use it to add play count and other advanced stats to the tags on your music files for more customizable tracking.
Last.fm
Integrate Last.fm to track your listening stats across different music apps and see incredibly detailed reports on your scrobbling history and library. Get listening profiles, top artists, discoveries, and more.
Conclusion
To quickly summarize, here are the main ways covered to check your total music playtime in iTunes:
- Use a Smart Playlist set to “Media Kind is Music” and view total time
- Manually estimate based on number of songs x average song length
- Check individual song and playlist times
- Turn on Play Stats for playback tracking
- Use third party apps like MediaMonkey for more advanced analytics
Knowing the total amount of music you have in iTunes can be valuable for managing your library. If your collection is getting unwieldy or you need to free up space, view the playtime hours to help decide what music to keep versus prune.
Hopefully this guide has helped explain the different options for seeing your iTunes music play statistics. Let us know if you have any other questions!
