libpytunes

Created by Liam Kaufman (liamkaufman.com)

Contributions by Liam Kaufman (liamkaufman.com), Steven Miller (copart), dpchu, selftext, z4r, pschorf, Mathew Bramson (mbramson), Roger Filmyer (rfilmyer), cktse, Scot Hacker (shacker)

Before using libpytunes it is recommended that you backup your Itunes Library XML file. Use libpytunes at your own risk - there is no guarantee that it works or will not blow-up your computer!

If you don't see an .xml library file in ~/Music/iTunes, you probably started using iTunes after version 12.2, and have never enabled sharing between iTunes and other apps. To generate one, go to iTunes Preferences | Advanced and select "Share iTunes Library XML with other applications." (Apple docs)

Usage:

from libpytunes import Library

l = Library("/path/to/iTunes Library.xml")

for id, song in l.songs.items():
    if song and song.rating:
        if song.rating > 80:
            print(song.name, song.rating)

playlists=l.getPlaylistNames()

for song in l.getPlaylist(playlists[0]).tracks:
	print("[{t}] {a} - {n}".format(t=song.track_number, a=song.artist, n=song.name))

See below for available song attributes.

If your library is very large, reading the XML into memory could be quite slow. If you need to access the library repeatedly, Python's "pickle" can save a binary representation of the XML object to disk for much faster access (up to 10x faster). To use a pickled version, do something like this:

import os.path
import pickle
import time
from libpytunes import Library

lib_path = "/Users/[username]/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml"
pickle_file = "itl.p"
expiry = 60 * 60  # Refresh pickled file if older than
epoch_time = int(time.time())  # Now

# Generate pickled version of database if stale or doesn't exist
if not os.path.isfile(pickle_file) or os.path.getmtime(pickle_file) + expiry < epoch_time:
    itl_source = Library(lib_path)
    pickle.dump(itl_source, open(pickle_file, "wb"))

itl = pickle.load(open(pickle_file, "rb"))

for id, song in itl.songs.items():
    if song and song.rating:
        if song.rating > 80:
            print("{n}, {r}".format(n=song.name, r=song.rating))

Notes

Track counts may not match those shown in iTunes. e.g. This may report a higher number than the song count shown in iTunes itself. :

l = Library("iTunes Library.xml")
len(l.songs)

This is because iTunes does not count things like Podcasts and Voice Memos as "Music," whereas libpytunes counts all tracks.

The songs dictionary is keyed on TrackID (as coded in iTunes xml). Playlists are lists of Song objects, with their order noted as a playlist_order attribute.

Attributes of the Song class:

persistent_id (String)
name (String)
artist (String)
album_artist (String)
composer = None (String)
album = None (String)
genre = None (String)
kind = None (String)
size = None (Integer)
total_time = None (Integer)
track_number = None (Integer)
track_count = None (Integer)
disc_number = None (Integer)
disc_count = None (Integer)
year = None (Integer)
date_modified = None (Time)
date_added = None (Time)
bit_rate = None (Integer)
sample_rate = None (Integer)
comments = None (String)
rating = None (Integer)
album_rating = None (Integer)
play_count = None (Integer)
location = None (String)
location_escaped = None (String)
compilation = False (Boolean)
grouping = None (String)
lastplayed = None (Time)
skip_count = None (Integer)
skip_date = None(Time)
length = None (Integer)
work = None (String)
movement_name = None (String)
movement_number = None (Integer)
movement_count = None (Integer)
loved = False (Boolean)
album_loved = False (Boolean)

Songs retrieved as part of a playlist have an additional attribute:

playlist_order = None (Integer)

Song object attributes can be iterated through like this:

for key, value in SongItem:
	<interact with specific key,value pair>.

You can also convert songs directly to Dictionaries with the ToDict() Method.

SongDictionary = SongItem.ToDict()

Attributes of the Playlist class:

name (String)
tracks (List[Song])
is_folder = False (Boolean)
playlist_persistent_id = None (String)
parent_persistent_id = None (String)

Legacy Mode

Support for legacymode has been removed with version 1.5