This Mac tip is provided by Mark Greentree and was originally posted on Mark’s blog – Everyday Mac Support. For more of Mark’s tips visit his site, follow him on Twitter, or browse his archive of posts here.
How To: Hiding Previous Purchases In iTunes
If you have ever gone to the previous purchases page in iTunes you will no doubt be aware of the massive collection of music, movies, TV shows, Apps, and Books which reside in this area. Whilst you can perform a search you may not be able to remember that name of the item you are searching for.
Apple has a way in iTunes to clean up the clutter. Simply drag your mouse pointer over any item you wish to hide and an “x” will appear in the top left of the associated icon as shown below:
Even if the app has been downloaded to your iTunes library you can still hide the item. By clicking on the “x” you will be presented with the following message:
Please note the above message will not be shown each time you hide a item and as such will only be shown on the very first time you undertake this process.
Clicking Hide will remove the item from the purchased list. This is a great way to remove applications that you are either no longer needing to have immediate access to or they already have been downloaded on your device. For example, the TeachCast app that I am showcasing in this article resides on my iPhone but I want to save on storage space on my Mac so I am choosing to not download it into iTunes. Please be aware that removing an item from this area will not remove the item from your account.
Apple simply moves these hidden purchases to your account information page. Simply enter your account information page in iTunes and you will notice the new iTunes in the Cloud area as shown below:
You will notice in the above image that under Hidden Purchases I have one hidden item. This is the item I have just hidden from the main list. If I now click on View Hidden Purchases on the right hand side the following will be presented:
At anytime I can go into this location and select Unhide which will then place the item in question back into the main previously purchased area of iTunes.
Please note when you hide an item in your account in iTunes using this method it will also be hidden on your iOS devices until you unhide it.
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