Who are the other gigs in your life, iPod?

April 11, 2007 5:40 AM

Stupid iPod question: what's the deal with "other" in the iTunes capacity indicator?

I know this is probably going to be all too simple, but I've goog'd many times and can't seem to find the right combination of words to get the answer. So, in my iTunes, when I plug in my really full 5g 30gig, there's always about 2.2 gigs of "other" in the capacity indicator. I've disabled games, contacts, TV shows, and just about everything other than music and podcasts. I'm eager to release those 2 gigs from bondage, and learn what it is that takes up so much space.

Thanks in advance for taking on what is likely to be a fairly quickly answered question from an iPod noob.

posted by moonbird to computers & internet (9 comments total)

On mine, it's usually the various files I have on the hard drive (as external storage) (2.1GB of 2.6GB other). The remainder is various itunes system files and 300MB of Album cover art.

So, I guess, check if you have large files for cover art, or are using your ipod as a disk...
posted by claudius at 5:57 AM on April 11, 2007

The software to run the iPod? The space needed to format the drive? (Whenever you buy a new drive it's never the amount of space you paid for.)
posted by dobbs at 6:08 AM on April 11, 2007

To find out (I'm assuming you're on Windows):
1. Enable disk use in your iPod so that it shows up in My Computer as a disk drive.
2. Download Treesize (free).
3. Run it. You'll see what's taking up that space.
posted by desjardins at 6:42 AM on April 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Other" is more or less anything that's not audio or video, even iTunes stuff (which is misleading, but makes sense, because a binary file listing all your songs and their metadata isn't really music). For example, the iTunes Library file, album art, song lyrics, etc. All of these can add up. However, if you have whole gigabytes of data that you're sure you didn't add, or you're just curious, go with desjardins and use Treesize, or, on the Mac, GrandPerspective.
posted by DarkElf109 at 7:03 AM on April 11, 2007

Cover art is my guess.
posted by chrisamiller at 8:38 AM on April 11, 2007

Isn't cover art embedded in the ID3 tag?
posted by afx114 at 9:39 AM on April 11, 2007

It's all the iPod software and album art. On your computer, it's embedded in the ID3 tag, but it needs to be reformatted or some such thing. It could also be contacts and calendars, if you sync those. Previously, not on the Green but on iLounge.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 10:04 AM on April 11, 2007

Cover art is only embedded in the ID3 tag if you've added your own cover art; if you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store or use the "Get Album Artwork" option in iTunes, it puts the art in a separate database. This database improves efficiency by storing only one copy of the art per album, and also by requiring only one conversion when optimizing artwork for display on an iPod.

The separate database was added relatively recently -- at the same time the "Get Album Artwork" option appeared. Prior to that, all artwork was stored in the ID3 tags. Any music you had in your library before then, including purchased music, still stores its artwork in the ID3 tags unless you delete the artwork and then run "Get Album Artwork" on it. (You have to delete first, because iTunes won't automatically replace existing artwork.)

Cover art will generally be the bulk of the "other" category on the iPod capacity gauge. If you store contacts, calendars, and notes on your iPod, that'll be included there, too (though it'll likely be a very small percentage of the total). If you store files on the iPod in disk mode, that's also "other."
posted by Acetylene at 10:21 AM on April 11, 2007

TreeSize did it. Having bought it lightly used from a friend, I found that he had 2 gigs of music that here hiding under a folder that I hadn't seen. The album artwork only took up about 200 mb. So, I now have 2.3 gb to squeeze good stuff into. Thanks for all your help!
posted by moonbird at 9:56 AM on April 13, 2007