iTunes 11 Sweet Keyboard Shortcuts

So, now that you’re becoming quite the iTunes 11 power user, it’s time to take that one final step: keyboard shortcuts.

Everyone knows that using the mouse when there’s a keyboard shortcut to be had is tre uncool. I’ve been on some friends’ case for years to get them to actually use Command-C and Command-V to cut and paste their text, sometimes to no avail.But not you, no. You’re a power user in training. You’re ready to control iTunes 11 with the power of the keyboard.

Here’s a few of them to get you started. The obvious ones are Space to play or pause a song, Command-Right Arrow to skip to the next song, and Command-Left Arrow to skip back to the beginning of the current song as
well as to skip back to the previous song.

But here are a few that are new, just for iTunes 11.

First up, you can switch between different types of media with the following shortcuts, a great trick when you’re not showing the
Sidebar. Hit the Command key on your keyboard, followed by the 1 – 7 number keys at the same time to switch to any enabled media, which typically will show up in the left top pop up menu in iTunes 11, or down the left side of the Sidebar. Here’s the list:

Command-1 = Music
Command-2 = Movies
Command-3 = TV Shows
Command-4 = Podcasts
Command-5 = iTunes U
Command-6 = Books
Command-7 = Apps

Next, to add songs to the Up Next playlist, you can also hit Option-Return once you’ve selected the song in your iTunes 11 playlist.
Click on the song with the mouse, or use the up and down arrows (power user!) to select the song you want to send to Up Next, then
hit Option-Return. Simple, and effective!