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If you’re anything like me, you have an iTunes library you’ve amassed over the course of many years, one that includes everything from ripped CDs to Amazon MP3 purchases to song downloads from any number of outside sources.
In other words, it’s a messy collection, with duplicates, missing album art and tags, and so on. There are plenty of utilities out there promising to clean things up, but most of them will cost you.
Not today. Until tomorrow, you can get Leawo Tunes Cleaner (PC/Mac) absolutely free. There’s a slightly obnoxious catch, but ultimately it’s no big deal.
True to its name, Tunes Cleaner aims to clean up your iTunes library. It can locate and delete duplicate songs, restore missing song tags and album art, and even work with folders outside iTunes. It normally sells for $29.95.
So, what’s the catch? After you click one of the Download buttons (red for Windows, blue for Mac), and then actually download and install the program (which will be the trial version), you have to return to Leawo’s giveaway page, click that Download button again, then leave a review for the program. Along with that, you’ll supply your e-mail address, which the company will use to send you an activation code to unlock the full version.
This explains the multitude of very short reviews you’ll already find for the product; it’s a good bet some folks are just doing the minimum required work to get the activation code. But if you want some more objective endorsements, check out CNET’s recent review of Tunes Cleaner (3.5 stars), along with the half-dozen or so user ratings (4.5 stars on average).
For what it’s worth, my registration code (which can be entered directly into the program — you don’t need to redownload and reinstall it as suggested in the e-mail) arrived almost instantly after I left my review. Which was positive, given that in my quick tests, it worked exactly as advertised — which is to say it found a bunch of songs missing artwork, artist, and/or album information, then found and added all that information for most of them.
This giveaway is good through tomorrow, June 20. If your iTunes and/or MP3 library seems messy, I’d say let Tunes Cleaner take a whack at cleaning it up — free of charge.
