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Currently the only filters for search in iTunes are by song, album, artist and composer. Is there a way to search by genre in iTunes?

6 Answers 6

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In the current version of iTunes, it works when you uncheck "Search entire iTunes library" in the search bar. (To get there you click the spotlight-type icon in the iTunes search bar.) I had the same problem, and that worked for me!

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  • Excellent, this was apparently an improvement introduced in the meanwhile with some of the latest versions of iTunes. Still not a perfect solution, but it finally exists. Thanks for the tip! Oct 7, 2015 at 10:37
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    What is "current version" in this context? I'm running 12.4.3.1 and that checkbox does not exist.
    – Cory Klein
    Sep 2, 2016 at 15:44
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Seems like you cannot search by genre in iTunes, however you can perform a search request like this in Spotlight: kind:music genre:jazz which will reveal all for tracks that have genre set to jazz in their tags.

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  • That’s good to know, thanks, but is far from fast workflow (faster / more natural workflow for me: entering a keyword in MiniPlayer / search and getting instant results on Genre, just as there are for Song, Artist, Album, etc. May 7, 2014 at 16:31
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    Unfortunately, you cannot do that from within iTunes. You can only search either with Spotlight or via an automator script.
    – kervich
    May 7, 2014 at 17:57
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Assuming you are using iTunes 11 then there is a bar under the window that shows what is currently playing and one of the buttons should say Genre and will usually be 4th from the left. If you click on that then it should sort your library by genre. Hope this helps!

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  • Yes, I know, but that’s not what I can use in search. Example of this would be entering a keyword in MiniPlayer / search and getting instant results on Genre, just as there are for Song, Artist, Album, etc. May 7, 2014 at 16:28
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Just type genre name (or part of name) in search box in iTunes and it's find all results.

(Doesn't work in MiniPlayer mode, only in full mode)

Did you forget to press Return for actual search in library?

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  • This does not work. The closest you get is the filter by option on the search button but that doesn't even have a genre option.
    – rcobelli
    May 7, 2014 at 23:33
  • Nope, it won’t. If I enter i.e. new wave in search in iTunes it will just show albums and songs, not genre nor any relations to it. May 8, 2014 at 10:08
  • Select the Genres tab, or are you sure your tracks properly tagged?
    – mtayler
    May 8, 2014 at 10:48
  • …Or I could simply go to the Genres tab itself and select it, but that’s not the flow (intuitively) expected from search field that shows instant results for all the other categories (Album, Artist, etc.). It’s simple: I should type ⌘ + F getting the search field in focus and then just start typing some genre and get instant suggestion. May 27, 2014 at 13:53
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On the left hand side: select songs to show the grid view. Add columns if needed. Go to View in the menu bar, select column browser.

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  • That’s fine, but it’s sorting not filtering in search. May 29, 2016 at 19:55
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I got this to work in iTunes 12.4.1.6: If I have Genre visible as a column, then I can search for a genre in the search box, and it limits the visible songs to those that are in that genre. But I have to make the Genre column visible first; searching by genre doesn't work otherwise.

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