AlbumArt files

I turned on the "view all files" in the folder options and found some weird files on my computer. They all start with the name "AlbumArt ". Most have a bunch of garbage between the {} after that and look like they belong in the registry.

Under details the files are listed as JPEG (not JPG whatever the difference is) but when I try to delete them, WIndows flags me and says they are system files. So I don't get it.

I have no idea where they came from and why Windows thinks it's a system file. They are all photos of album covers. I seem to recall when playing music through Windows Media player it sometimes displays an album in the lower right hand window.

So I suspect WIndows Media player downloaded them automatically and saved them to my hardrive in certain folders.

So is it safe to delete these files? Am I on track as to how they got there?

 

Windows Media Player (and other programs, iTunes for example) will download album art.

It is a metadata element, and I am not sure you can stop it. I am sure someone more knowledgeable will explain how to do this.

But to your question, album art consists of two files:
a folder.jpg file
an AlbumArt_{123012-1212-12-12-21-12--211212}_Large.jpg (the GUID of the album) file.

I would leave them, but the second type of file is a system file.

 

I just went through all of mine a few days ago and deleted all of the art. So far, I've not noticed any problems. If you delete them, you won't see any picture in the "now playing" thing but that's no biggy to me.

I think you can stop it from downloading them in MP's options. I say think because it's only been a few days since I set the option but so far, no pictures have been downloaded. I tried adding new files to the library and played them and no pictures were downloaded so I'm guessing it worked.

In MP, click tools>options>library and uncheck the line that says "retrieve additional information from the internet ". As I said, so far, it seems to have worked for me.