iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Importing Other Music Files into iTunes

Not all sound files come directly from the compact discs in your personal collection. As long as a file is in a format that iTunes can comprehend (MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, or Audible), you can add it to the iTunes music library by any of several methods.

Note

The AAC format includes a copy-protection feature that MP3 doesn’t have. Songs you buy from the iTunes Music Store and music encoded from your own CDs with iTunes work, but you may have trouble playing or moving other copy-protected AAC files (like those bought from, for example, LiquidAudio.com).

• On the Mac, you can drag a file or folder full of sound files onto the iTunes icon on the Mac OS X Dock, or onto Mac OS 9’s floating Applications palette, to add the music to the library. In Windows, hover the mouse over the iTunes taskbar button without letting go of the song files; when the program window pops open, you can drop the songs on the iTunes window. (The taskbar gets cranky if you try to drop files directly onto the iTunes button.)

• You can also drag the files or folders straight into the iTunes window.

• If menus are your thing, choose File→Add File to Library. In the resulting dialog box, locate and click the file you wish to add, or -click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) several files in the list to highlight them all at once. Click Choose to bring it, or them, into iTunes.

Figure 4-10.  Select the file you’d like to add to your expanding iTunes library with the File→Add File to Library command. If the files you want to add are not in iTunes-friendly formats, you can find scores of shareware on the Web that can convert different audio formats. Some of these sites include MP3 machine (http://www.mp3machine.com), the Hit Squad (http://www.hitsquad.com), and MP3-Converter (http://www.mp3-converter.com).