ITunes icon

ITunes

iTunes is a free media player, media library, Internet radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple. It is used to play, download, and organize digital multimedia files, including music and video, on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating systems.

What is ITunes?

iTunes is a free media player, media library, Internet radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple. It was first released in 2001 for Mac computers to manage music libraries and play songs. Over the years, support for other types of media was added, like music videos, audiobooks, and podcasts.

On Mac computers, iTunes also serves as a hub for syncing content with iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices. It allows users to import songs from CDs to build their digital music library. The iTunes Store built into the app provides a way to browse and purchase new music, movies, TV shows, and more.

With iTunes, users can listen to music and other audio, organize media files into playlists, share media libraries over a local network, and create backups. Key features include:

  • Media playback for songs, movies, podcasts, audiobooks, and more
  • Library management for media files stored locally on the device
  • iTunes Store for purchasing and downloading multimedia content
  • Syncing music, videos, and other data with iPhone, iPad and iPod devices
  • Internet radio with access thousands of internet radio streams

iTunes is available for free download for Windows and Mac computers. It requires Windows 10/11 or macOS Catalina and newer to run. Optional iTunes Match and Apple Music subscriptions provide additional cloud music storage and streaming capabilities.

The Best ITunes Alternatives

Top Apps like ITunes

Winamp, Bandcamp, MusicBee, MediaMonkey, AIMP, foobar2000, Tauon Music Box, Audacious, Clementine, Strawberry, Radio Garden, Musicmatch Jukebox, Madsonic are some alternatives to ITunes.

Winamp

Winamp is a highly customizable media player for Windows that has been popular since its initial release in 1997. It supports playback of a wide range of audio and video formats including MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, MIDI, and many more.Some key features of Winamp include:Customizable interface...

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is an online music marketplace and community launched in 2008 that enables musicians to share and sell their music directly to fans. It stands out from other music platforms by offering one of the most artist-friendly revenue splits in the industry, with artists keeping an average of 82% of sales proceeds...

MusicBee

MusicBee is a free, advanced music player and media library organizer for Windows. Developed as an alternative to iTunes and Windows Media Player, MusicBee offers powerful tools for managing even extremely large music collections.Key features of MusicBee include:Plays a wide range of audio formats including MP3, FLAC, AAC...

MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey is a powerful and customizable digital media player and library manager for Windows. First released in 2001, it has become a popular choice for organizing and playing large collections of audio and video files.Key features of MediaMonkey include:Managing extensive libraries with hundreds of thousands of filesAutomatically organizing files...

AIMP

AIMP is an audio player application for Windows that supports playback of many audio file formats including MP3, MP4, WMA, FLAC, OGG, AAC, and more. Some key features of AIMP include:Lightweight interface that is customizable with skins and color schemesSupports plugins and extensions for added functionalityIncludes advanced audio options...

Foobar2000

foobar2000 is a popular free audio player application for the Windows platform. Originally released in 2002, it has earned a reputation for being lightweight, customizable, and supporting a wide range of audio formats.Some key features of foobar2000 include:Supports common formats like MP3, FLAC, WAV, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and more...

Tauon Music Box

Tauon Music Box is an open-source, cross-platform music player and media library organizer. It is designed to provide an intuitive user interface and seamless experience across devices for playing and managing music collections.Some key features of Tauon Music Box include:Playback of common audio formats like MP3, FLAC, Ogg...

Audacious

Audacious is an open source audio player application for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It focuses on delivering high audio quality while using minimal system resources.Some key features of Audacious include:Lightweight GTK+ based interfaceSupport for many audio formats including MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, WAV, and moreCustomizable interface with...

Clementine

Clementine is a free, open source music player and library organizer. It is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. Some key features of Clementine include:Plays music from local files as well as online streaming services like Spotify, Grooveshark, SomaFM, Jamendo, Magnatune, SoundCloud, and Icecast internet radio stationsOrganizes...

Strawberry

Strawberry Perl is a free and open source distribution of the Perl programming language for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is designed to provide everything you need to run Perl on Windows, including a Perl compiler, debugger, editor, and various libraries and add-ons.Key features of Strawberry Perl include:Latest...

Radio Garden

Radio Garden is an interactive online platform that allows users to explore live radio stations from around the world. Its key feature is an interactive map that displays radio station locations and streams live broadcasting from each one.Users can rotate/zoom into the map and click on any dot...

Musicmatch Jukebox

Musicmatch Jukebox is a digital music player and library management software originally created by Musicmatch, Inc in 1997 for the Windows operating system. At its peak popularity in the early 2000s, Musicmatch Jukebox was one of the most widely used pieces of software for organizing and playing digital music collections on...

Madsonic

Madsonic is an open-source, web-based media streaming application and media server. It is designed to stream a personal music collection to various devices over the internet. Madsonic is based on Subsonic which is no longer open-source, so Madsonic was created as a fully open-source fork.Some key features of Madsonic...