Many of us long for the days of a “Ping”less iTunes. Ping is one of those services that is a work in progress and in the process of its implementation into iTunes, Apple removed functionality that some of us actually used daily.
For example, the Ping drop down menu was added:
Which apparently replaced the very handy iTunes Store link:
Generally speaking its pretty easy to get rid of Ping if you don’t want to be constantly reminded of its presence. Choose your platform below and let us know if you have any questions.
Hide the Ping Sidebar
For some hiding the sidebar and the Ping item in the iTunes window is enough.
- Launch iTunes
- Click the “Hide Sidebar” button in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window
Remove the Ping listing from the “Store” category
- Select “Preferences…” from the “iTunes” menu.
- Click the “General” button at the top of the “Preferences” window.
- Uncheck “Ping” from the “Show” section.
- Click the “OK” button to close the “Preferences” window. “Ping” should disappear from the “Store” category.
Remove the Ping pop-up menus
- Quit iTunes by selecting “Quit iTunes” from the “iTunes” menu.
- Launch the “Terminal” application. It can be found at this path:
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Terminal
Its icon looks like this:
- Enter the following command in the Terminal window.
defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown -bool TRUE
- Press the “Return” key on your keyboard
- Relaunch iTunes and the Ping pop-up menus should now be gone.
Add the iTunes Store links back to the song list
- Quit iTunes by selecting “Quit iTunes” from the “iTunes” menu.
- Launch the “Terminal” application. It can be found at this path:
Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Terminal
Its icon looks like this:
- Enter the following command in the Terminal window.
defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-link-arrows 1
- Press the “Return” key on your keyboard
- Relaunch iTunes and the iTunes Store arrow links should now be present when you have a track selected.
Hide the Ping Sidebar
For some hiding the sidebar and the Ping item in the iTunes window is enough.
- Launch iTunes
- Click the “Hide Sidebar” button in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window
Remove the Ping listing from the “Store” category
- Select “Preferences…” from the “Edit” menu.
- Select the “General” tab in the Preferences window.
- Uncheck “Ping” from the “Sources” list.
- Click the “OK” button to submit your changes. The “Ping” source should disappear from beneath the “Store” heading.
Remove the Ping pop-up menus
- Quit iTunes by selecting “Exit” from the “File” menu.
- Select “Run” from the “Start” menu.
- Enter “cmd” in the “Run” dialog box “Open” field click the “OK” button.
- A new command window will appear. Enter this command:
“C:Program FilesiTunesiTunes.exe” /setPrefInt hide-ping-dropdown 1
Press the “Return” key to submit your command for processing.
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