How do I sync audiobooks across to my iPhone?

Question

How do I sync audiobooks across to my iPhone?

Can anyone tell me how I am supposed to sync audiobooks across to my iPhone?

I have a whole bunch of them, and they are all plain old MP3 files, with a .mp3 file extension, but I have changed the "Media Kind" for them, by selecting File > Get Info, and then choosing the Options tab. Under there, I change Media Kind from "Music" to "Audiobook".
Having done that, they do all show up under the Audiobooks section in iTunes on my Mac.

I have my iPhone set to auto-sync, ie: "Manually manage music and videos" is unchecked.
I have "Sync only checked songs and videos" checked, and the relevant individual audiobooks that I do want to copy across are checked.
I just want a few at a time, so I only have a few checked.

Needless to say, Apple doesn't supply an Audiobook tab when viewing the iPhone settings in iTunes when the iPhone is plugged in.

I have plenty of space left on my iPhone. I do not get any error messages when attempting to sync. iTunes on my mac has no problems locating the files. But still, the audiobooks will not copy across.

The only way I can get them to copy across is to create a playlist for them, copy them from the Audiobooks section into this playlist, then go under the iPhone's settings/preferences when it's plugged in, and check this new playlist that I've created.
Then they will copy across to the iPhone.

But that's a bit of a hack-job. Is there no way to "correctly" copy across an audiobook to an iPhone?

I am running the latest versions of everything:
Mac OS X 10.5.5
iTunes 8.0.2
iPhone OS 2.2.1

2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 17" MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5), 2 GB RAM

Posted on Feb 11, 2009 10:05 AM

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Answer 1

DaVBMan

Level 6

9,280 points

Feb 11, 2009 10:13 AM in response to Brett Archibald

Not sitting in front of my computer with iTunes, but I have done the playlist approach myself only because I prefer it that way. But I was pretty sure there was a setting for syncing audiobooks but I could be wrong.

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Answer 2

Feb 11, 2009 10:22 AM in response to Brett Archibald

I'm such an idiot... 😟

Well, actually, I'm not entirely to blame on this one...

I just figured out that Apple has buried an "Audiobook playlist" checkbox under the Music tab in the iPhone's settings / preferences.
I didn't have this "playlist" checked.
So even though the individual audiobooks themselves were checked, because the main playlist itself was not, nothing was copying across.

So I'm the fool for not noticing the box wasn't checked — but can you blame me when Apple decides to hide the "Audiobooks" section under the "Music" tab instead of in its own dedicated tab, like they do with "Video", "Podcasts", etc.
Why does "Podcasts" get its own section, but "Audiobooks" doesn't?
How is an audiobook any more like "music" than a podcast is?

Now where's that rolls-eyes emoticon...?

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Answer 3

DaVBMan

Level 6

9,280 points

Feb 11, 2009 10:29 AM in response to Brett Archibald

Each person thinks different but I do see your point. As a developer myself, I may of gone the route of making, CONTACTS, CALENDAR, APPS, and MEDIA tabs with music, video, audiobooks, podcasts all considered media. Then a section for each on under the Media Tab.

Think they are just living with the fact that they started as one thing and have grown and new pieces have been added and maybe they didn't want to confuse older users. But anyhow...

Message was edited by: DaVBMan

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