Fixing iTunes 10 Minimize, Maximize, Close Buttons [How To]

Buster Heine ()

Fixing iTunes 10 Minimize, Maximize, Close Buttons [How To]

Ever feel like Steve Jobs is messing with you just for fun? That’s what I thought when I opened up iTunes 10 and saw the minimize, maximize, & close buttons on the left hand side of the window, instead of aligned at the top.

Moving the buttons over there goes against everything OS X design is about. It’s an uncharacteristic move by Apple, unless they plan to move the buttons to the side for all of their applications, which doesn’t seem likely. Don’t worry though, there’s a super simple fix for this weird quirk if you want to bring uniformity back to OS X.

First: Quit iTunes.

Second: Open Terminal (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s located under Applications > Utilities  > Terminal)

Third: Type or Paste the following into Terminal and then hit enter. “defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1’

Fixing iTunes 10 Minimize, Maximize, Close Buttons [How To]

Fourth: Open iTunes, and notice that balance has been restored.

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Fixing iTunes 10 Minimize, Maximize, Close Buttons [How To]

Update: Here’s a mod, courtesy of Obama Pacman on how to restore color to the icons in the left sidebar. I haven’t tried it because I like the unity of the new grey, but if you’re clamoring for some color give it a shot.

49 comments »

About the author

busterheineBuster Heine heads Cult of Mac's Social Media presence as well as contributes posts as often as he gets around to it. Website: noolo.gy; Twitter: twitter.com/bst3r.

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Posted in Apple, How-To, iTunes, Tips & Tricks, Top stories |

  • René Etienne Hupfer

    Wow that really helped me, because I like to drag the window with the header bar :D Mac is so customizable love it

  • thanx_Al

    I bet it was a programming error.

    • http://bust3r.com Buster Heine

      @thanx_al i doubt it’s a programming error. They used it in all of the new screenshots for iTunes. It’s like the when they came out with the recessed headphone jack in the original iPhone…it’s something weird that they could have done the right way but for some reason they chose not to?

  • beedevil

    THANK YOU! That was driving me crazy.

  • veedub

    Awesome! Now, any chance we could put some color back on the sides? Add the colors back to all the attached devices/options?

  • Joseph

    “Moving the buttons over there goes against everything OS X design is about. It’s an uncharacteristic move by Apple, unless they plan to move the buttons to the side for all of their applications, which doesn’t seem likely.”

    Disagree. Lining up the buttons horizontally means a horizontal strip along the full width of the window is wasted space. Positioning them horizontally allows Apple to push all the other controls closer to the top edge of the window while still keeping everything in balance. For example, the strip between the top edge of the area displaying the now playing info and the upper edge of the iTunes window is much narrower than before. As is the area between the top of the play button and the top edge of the window. Positioning the buttons vertically allows for this because it doesn’t waste that strip along the top. It’s a more efficient use of space. I may be the only one, but I like it.

  • Andrew MacDonald

    Personally I love the new button layout. Much cleaner looking. Dont know why people seem to have such a problem with it?

  • Joseph

    To clarify my comment above, by “much narrower”, I mean a couple millimeters. But I think it’s typically and uniquely Apple to care about waste, even such a small amount, and refine the design to eliminate it. The wasted space along the top edge is easily seen by comparing the controls in iTunes 10 to your screenshot of the horizontally aligned buttons.

  • Bobb

    Joseph: You… WIN

    From a person who uses iTunes on several different machines, including a laptop where space is at a premium, I actually like the new alignment.

    As for the question of whether Apple would change the button alignment for the rest of their apps: Did anyone else notice that the vertical alignment makes the buttons exactly resemble a standard traffic light?

  • Joseph

    “Positioning them horizontally allows Apple …”

    Correction: Positioning them VERTICALLY allows Apple … and yes, I am posting comments too quickly, I know.

    • http://bust3r.com Buster Heine

      I don’t have a problem where the buttons are located, it’s just out of character for Apple to break from uniformity. Usually when Apple makes a small change like that it will be across ALL apps to preserve unity. It’s odd that they pushed that out but haven’t done so with other applications when you know that Steve loves things to be in order.

  • Snackhound

    Thanks for the tip, those vertical buttons were annoying me with their wink to traffic lights and Fisher Price.

  • Conrad

    I also like the new button layout. And I think the monochromatic look is pretty slick. IMHO.

  • bughunter

    Gee, and when I saw this article title on my RSS feed (truncated just before the word ‘buttons’), i thought it was going to be about removing the iTunes bloat…

    See: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/09/03/1511234/Flawed-iTunes-Stands-Out-Among-Apples-Products

  • http://tvscifi.com stevehops

    I like the new buttons, they save space and look like a traffic light, zoom, zoom!

  • MacGoo

    Steve actually explained why they did this – very much in the same vein as what Joseph has been saying. Notice also that if you don’t change it back, there is also no “iTunes” label at the top of the window. All in all it’s pretty arbitrary – there’s just about a 16 pixel difference. I prefer consistency in the interface, so I switched it back, but either way you should be fine – there’s not a Mac out there with a vertical resolution less than 768. So the math says that the portion of your screen you’re gaining is only .2% of the vertical space. Meh. I’ll take back my 16 pixels and not stumble every time I go to minimize the window, thanks. To each their own.

  • king

    who uses these buttons any way?
    command+q to quit the app
    command+W to close window
    command+M to minimize

    and as for the “+” button, it sucks, click and drag to the size you want

  • Brandon

    I want it in all of the apps… or i don’t want it.

  • Jerzy Bastion

    This has been an unbelievable experience for me; thankyou so much!

  • Saskal
  • http://www.luiwallentin.com LuiWallentin

    I really don’t get the choice for placing the buttons there. Not the best GUI decision.

    So thanks a million for this little fix :-)

  • inspector

    hey thanks for the tip, can you give us the command to reverse it if we choose?

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    Fix the gray icons, turn into color:
    http://obamapacman.com/2010/09/how-to-add-color-icons-apple-itunes-10-gray-sidebar-mod/

    @king,
    Exactly. The new buttons orientation provides more vertical room.

  • Ryan Vigneux

    thanks a ton. i knew as soon as i saw it i’d have to do a google search to find a fix. nice work!

  • rachel

    i dont know if you rememberm but the buttons were vertically in the mini-player window of previous itunes versions, if you have itunes 9, clic de “+” button and it will become a tiny window with VERTICAL buttons… anyway, they suck asses, i DONT WANT OS 10.7 to have this kind of shitty buttons

  • G

    @Joseph I’m with you, I like them the new way, I actually haven’t even noticed them. Was busy noticing that when you click on the artwork now you have a mini player there too :)

  • Brian

    @G

    Excellent. I really like that feature.

  • G

    @Brian I totally loved it when I discovered it :) I’m album art freak by all means hehehe

  • charli

    Apple’s UI Guidelines are NOT laws. They are ‘guidelines’ made by Apple for their stuff. So yeah, they can change them if and when they wish. So please get off the whole “They can’t do that” schtick. Cause yes, they can

  • Bilckie

    What a waste of internet space. If you disagree with apples new button layout, go buy a PC!

  • jonathan

    What do u mean they cant do it? They just did..go have a cry on ur bed if u dont like it, u will feel better tomorrow.

  • who?

    Hey guys, can you give me a link about the girl who is on the first picture?
    Please, she is so cute.:)

  • http://www.SchnauzerLogic.com SchnauzerLogic

    to the poster who asked about reversing the mod: replace the “-1″ with a “0″ and you should be good to go

  • http://retromaccast.ning.com/profile/JamesWages James Wages

    Quite ironic that some of you say this is “driving you crazy” as you would have seen this before had you driven more than a couple hours in your life. Some stop lights are mounted horizontally, while others are vertical. Hence, one can argue that since these buttons emulate a stop light, either horizontal or vertical position is “natural.”

    Moreover, since the red button is still in the same place it always was, and since many people click only that red button anyway, iTunes designers clearly thought the horizontal-to-vertical swap should be “no big deal.”

    Lastly, a strictly right-brained person who overanalyzes the aesthetic design of the upper portion of the iTunes window may be think it “better” to contrast the stop-light buttons in a vertical fashion with the horizontally aligned REV-PLAY-FWD arrow buttons.

    Keep in mind that “UI consistency” is largely a left-brain concept.

  • Me

    I think it’s better this way. Fits the design better. But that’s only my opinion.

  • DR

    Nice little fix.

  • Joe Jackson

    What if I did this mod and wanted to reverse it?

  • Joe Jackson

    What if I did this mod and wanted to reverse it?

  • Dimplemonkey

    If you want to change the color of the buttons back to the red, yellow, and green tones, just go to System Preferences, Appearance, then change the Appearance pulldown from Graphite to Blue. Done.

  • Remembrance

    THankS, A Lot! )) usefull thing ))

  • Brano

    Thanks for this hint. It was a pain to always think where the f.ck is the minimize button. Now it is just fine!

  • ChrisR

    I tried that text in Terminal and got rep argument not a dictionary (or similar), so it didn’t work

    • http://bust3r.com Buster Heine

      worked for everyone else….

  • Barbara Black

    Those button have been driving me nuts for a long time. Thanks for the fix. It worked perfectly.

    Barbara

  • anonymous

    didn’t work for me :-(

  • anonymous

    oops – it did actually work except when it’s just the player it’s still vertical – which has always bothered me!! grrrr… thanks though for fixing it maximized :-)

  • jkmca

    totally works, just leave out the quotes

  • Testerkami

    i actually like it vertical saves screen space by getting rid of the title bar which is useless. i want a way to make all the applications do this.

  • Mateu

    How do you go back to the previous setting?