Disable Windows Media Player Album Art – Turn Off Information Retrieval

Tim Cinel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:39:46 +0000

Windows Media Player downloads album art into the same directory as music files. As a result, your music file structure end up littered with hundreds of ugly AlbumArt___….jpg files. There’s no way to disable only album art, but you can turn off information retrieval which will stop Windows Media Player from getting new album art. Unfortunately, it will also stop Windows Media Player from obtaining meta-data for CDs that you rip. Here’s how to turn it on and off.

In Windows Media Player, click the small down-arrow beneath “Library” (Alternatively, press the ALT key, click “Tools > Options …” then go to the “Library” tab)

Check or uncheck “Retrieve additional information from the internet”

Click “Ok”.

Note that if you want to rip a CD, you should turn this back on – otherwise you’ll have to manually enter the album name, track names, artists, etc. Of course – this means the album art for the media will be obtained again. Just delete the AlbumArt____ file after ripping the CD. Better yet, use a different program to rip.

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Disable Windows Media Player Album Art – Turn Off Information Retrieval