12th
Converting iTunes music to MP3s
I noticed a few people having problems getting their music to players that presumably do not handle AAC format files, so I thought I would type up a little how-to.
Music purchased from the iTunes store is an M4A file. They’re similar to MP3s and playable by iPods and many other players, but they use AAC encoding instead of MP3.
If the player only handles MP3s, you will need to convert the music. To do that, you need to make a change in the iTunes preferences. Where that is will depend on your version of iTunes and if your in Windows or if you are on a Mac. The current version of iTunes is 10.1.1 for both Windows and Mac, so I will cover those.
On a Mac, Preferences are always under the application’s main menu, which is always the first menu on the top left of your screen, just to the right of the Apple logo, and is the title of application. In Windows, the Preferences is under the Edit menu.
Once you are in Preferences, the first tab is the General tab, and towards the bottom you will see a button labeled Import Settings…. After clicking on that, you should see a drop-down for Import Using: and Setting:. Change Import Using to MP3 Encoder. It should automatically change Setting to High Quality (160 kbps), which is fine. Now click on the OK button, and then OK again.
How, select the music you want to convert. You may find it easier to add all the music you want to convert to a playlist first so that you can simply go that playlist and select all rather than accidentally releasing the Control/Shift/Command key while trying to select multiple songs and having to start over. Once you have the music you’d like to convert selected, go to the Advanced menu and click on Create MP3 Version. If you are currently in a playlist, the new files will not show up there, so go back to Music in the LIBRARY on the top left of the window.
There are a number of ways to sort out the files you create from the originals. The easiest may be to simply sort by Date Added since they will have just been added to the library. This cannot be done in Grid View, so make sure you have the 1st, 2nd, or 4th button selected amongst the 4 view buttons just to the left of the search box at the top right. If the Date Added column is not showing up, you can add it by going to the View menu, selecting View Options…, and then check the box for Date Added. You may also want to check the Kind box here as well so that you can see which files are MP3 without guessing. I wouldn’t advise leaving these files in your library permanently since they are essentially duplicates. Do what you need to do with them, drag them to your Desktop, whatever, and then delete them from your music library.
