I would love to switch to faster software for editing my library but that would mean re-importing every change I make to the music files back into iTunes, so I didn’t seriously consider it. I need iTunes for iPod syncing and iTunes Store music purchases and Apple TV and on and on…

What software you using, Anabella?

Most people in my position have long since abandoned the use of iTunes as Apple let us down years ago by not responding to numerous complaints about problems with library file size.

Even now, with 8.1, the figures presented in other comments suggest that my library file would still be in excess of 100mg’s.

Whadaya think?…is that going to run smoothly as a single library given past experience?

While the library file will certainly grow, it would take, in your case, about 6 times as much music as you have to get to its previous size. I think you’re safe. :-)

Over about five months, I had 73 freezes requiring a hard restart. Since I upgraded to 8.1 on March 12, I have gone 16 glorious days without incident. (There were many more freezes before this, but I started counting, documenting, and troubleshooting in earnest after I did an erase and install of the OS in October.)

My system would freeze (sometimes, unpredictably) when files were being added to iTunes, either via podcast download, use of Applescript to alter files, or being added by other software such as Audio Hijack Pro or EyeTV.

When I upgraded to 8.1, my library had about 11,500 files and was about 290 GB. The iTunes Library database file was 35.3 MB, but after upgrading shrunk to 5.8 MB. Changing genres on multiple files used to take a few seconds; today, it zips…

I am so happy that iTunes finally seems to just work. But it’s the kind of happy one gets when someone stops beating you up. I am scarred and a little fearful to move forward, wondering if it’s safe to turn on automatic downloading of podcasts or to let EyeTV files automatically export to iTunes while I am away from the computer. In the past six months or more, doing so would sometimes result in a freeze that would prevent other automated events from occurring.

I know it’s almost trite to say this: But I’ve owned Macs since 1987. This is the worst problem I ever had with an Apple product. Sorrowfully, it has shut me up from crowing about the superiority of the brand.

Normally, I wouldn’t ask these questions, I would accept the good fortune and move on. But why does this work so much better? Is the better performance entirely the result of the reduced size of the iTunes Library database file? And if so, why is it so much smaller now? And furthermore, is there a danger somewhere down the line that if my iTunes Library grows and the database file grows that iTunes will become sluggish and freeze-prone again?

As for artwork, it would have to cache all your artwork to be able to display it more quickly. I think it’s the limitation of your hard disk that slows this down. This said, it seems faster here. Perhaps memory has something to do with it; I’ve recently added 4 GB more of RAM (I now have 8 GB) to my Mac Pro, so there’s less virtual memory being used (that is, there’s basically none).

My guess is the iTunes is just smarter, changing things in the background. It is also smart enough to change the playing track without a lag (previously, changing anything on a playing track would cause the track to stop for a second).

One thing that is still slow as ever is scrolling through tracks with the album artwork pane enabled. And iTunes still won’t let me rate an unselected track until it has loaded the artwork for that track. Also, adding artwork to multiple tracks, the other thing that was always the slowest in iTunes 8.0.2 and earlier, is still slow, though maybe just a little faster.