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Transfer your iTunes music to a USB drive

I have been gifted a Brennan how on earth do I get my itunes on to it? I have been trying to work it out for DAYS!!!


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Posted on Jan 6, 2012 12:10 AM

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Posted on Jan 6, 2012 5:12 AM

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.

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Question marked as Best reply

Jan 6, 2012 5:12 AM in response to carolfromnr glasgow

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.

Jan 23, 2017 1:41 PM in response to turingtest2

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!

Mar 3, 2014 1:32 PM in response to Major417

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.

Aug 10, 2012 10:38 AM in response to cole152

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.

Dec 8, 2013 8:39 PM in response to Major417

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

Jul 20, 2015 7:18 AM in response to ed2345

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?

Transfer your iTunes music to a USB drive

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