Transfer your iTunes music to a USB drive

This didn't do anything for me. I tried it and just got a red circle with a line through it.

To copy songs from iTunes to a USB: Insert the flash drive into a USB port, and open it so it looks like a folder on your desktop.

Then highlight the songs in your iTunes library that you want, as follows:

• To highlight one song, click it.
• To highlight a range of songs, click the first, hold Shift, and click the last.
• To highlight a bunch of selected songs that are not in order, hold the CTRL key and click each one.
• To highlight all the songs in the view, click one, and then CTRL-A.

Once they are highlighted, simply drag them to the folder.

If you normally run iTunes in full-screen mode, make it smaller before you start this process, so that you will be able to do the drag.

One thing I meant to add: this process copies the songs to the USB. It does not change anything in your iTunes library.

Best way to play iTunes on a car radio through USB is to just transfer everything to your iPhone and then plug your phone into the USB slot. Even if you get your files on a USB, you still need some kind of interface to play the files. Maybe they make a car radio to do that but I just use my iPhone. Also, I always back up my iTunes folder onto a flash drive in case I make some kind of mistake or something. Just go to Music and you should see your iTunes folder.

I figured it out! I was dragging the new playlist on top of the existing list which didnt work. Then realized

I should drag it to the white space opposite the previous list and it worked fine. Dumb I know🙂

Major,

A common situation is that many car players are expecting MP3 files, while many iTunes users keep their music in AAC format.

Check the manual for your car and see if it requires MP3. If so, you can use iTunes to create MP3 versions by these documents:

iTunes 11 for Windows: Save a copy of a song in a new file format

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12367

iTunes 11 for Mac: Save a copy of a song in a new file format

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12167

Thanks for the tip!

I had previously done a manual copy via Windows Explorer of the folders and files to a 32GB drive that I've been using for the past 3 years since I bought my car. But much of the metadata and album art was missing. Also, it kept breaking every time I tried to add new files. I would have to re-format and re-build every time that happened...PIA!

MediaMonkey worked great for me. I was able to get metadata that was missing from many of my albums, as well as album art, prior to putting them on my new 64GB USB drive to use in my car (Dodge U-Connect). It worked like a charm and I was able to copy about 2700 tracks, all properly organized by artist, album, etc. It all works great!

I followed your instructions exactly but when I plug it into my car audio it can't find the music files. Any ideas as to why that is?

cole152 wrote:

Ok yep that makes sense but how do i do it so the actual albums are the subfolder on the usb key instead of just the mp3's in that file.

thanks,

Cole,

Right-click one of the tracks you want, and choose "Show in Windows Explorer." It will take you to the folder where the files are, and if you wish to copy across the whole folder intact, you can do so.

I followed this procedure and copied all my music files from iTunes to my usb 2.0 thumb drive. I was able to copy them after a waiting a while but the formatting is messed up. I cannot display all of them by artist or album when viewing them through Windows Explorer or Windows media player on my usb drive. Any suggestions on how I can fix this?

Would I be able to run MediaMonkey's tool off of my usb drive or does it have to be installed on a PC? Do you know of any browser based programs that would be able to organize my copied iTunes files?

I loaded my music files from my usb drive onto a folder in Windows desktop. I then opened up those music files in the desktop folder in Windows media player and formatted them so they were then groupable (in Windows media player) by album. I then copied these newly formatted files back onto my usb drive but it seems like the formatting was not saved. Would I have been successful in this approach if I used Media Monkey instead of Windows media player? Some of the songs have been formatted already on my usb drive (meaning they are grouped by album when I view them in Windows media player) but most are just contained in a long list. How did these few songs get formatted this way? I am able to play mp3 or 4 music files through a TV I have off of my usb drive and want to save the formatting so it is easier to listen to them. Any suggestions as to how I can do this would be helpful - would Media Monkey solve my problems? Would I have to be connected to the internet to run MediaMonkey? I would be installing it on an old P4 computer. Thanks.

Okay, now I am thoroughly confused. My TV won't play almost all of the songs I have on my usb drive now that I did the above edits through windows media player. I read the specs and the TV will play only MP3 files. Almost all the files on my usb are AAC audio files (I have a few actual MP3s on there too). The song that I got to play on my TV is listed as an AAC audio file, just like the rest of the ones that will not play. No, I have not tried to play the actual MP3 files on my TV yet. Any thoughts as to why my TV will play only a handful of my AAC files but not the rest?

The TV won't be able to play files protected with Apple's DRM. That could be anything purchased before 2010, or downloaded via the new Apple Music/iCloud Music Library features. Otherwise if it plays some AACs but not others then you'll need to consult documentation to find out why.

You should be able to convert non-protected AAC files to MP3s.

tt2

Also when I opened up my files on one computer, the files I am talking about had AAC file extensions but on another computer they had m4a file extensions. The mp3 files had the same extension (.mp3) on both computers. I am still confused.

.m4a is the file extension used for files in AAC format.

.mp3 is the file extension used for files in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III format, commonly called MP3.

Depending on options in Windows and which software is registered to handle the files of each type you may see variations in the icons or text descriptions.

Perhaps there is a difference in the bitrate between the files that will open, and those that won't. Apple Lossless files are also stored with the .m4a extension but might not be handled by your device even if it can read compressed AAC files.

tt2