iTunes won't accept album artwork.

PLEASE don't give me the standard "Simply go to file, Get Info, and add the artwork!" or Or "Go to File >> Library >> Get Album Artwork" standard replies.


I have tried all these methods dozens of times. It simply does not retain the information. This is the case mainly with brand new albums I've just imported from store bought CDs. I read somewhere that it has something to do with iCloud or how I choose to synch my music. However it was very badly explained. I just downloaded the latest version of iTunes and updating my iPhone.


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iPhone 5c, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 18, 2013 9:56 PM

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14 replies

Oct 20, 2013 3:33 PM in response to yaynana

Here is what iTunes Help says:



Add artwork to songs and other items

Music and video you buy from the iTunes Store comes with its own artwork. You can add your own artwork to songs and other items in your library.

You can add many popular types of still image files, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and Photoshop. You must convert WAV files to another format before you can add artwork to them.

Album artwork for the currently playing item appears to the left of the progress bar. To view album artwork at a larger size in a separate window, click the artwork.



Unless there is a strong reason you want to use the wav format, Apple Losless and Apple's AIFF are both uncompressed formats, mp3 and AAC are compressed formats that support tags and artwork.

Oct 19, 2013 3:15 AM in response to yaynana

I assume the artwork is lost when transfering music to your iPhone? How do you add artwork and how do you manage syncing betwen devices and iCloud? Clarify your question and provide more details and you will get better answers. It sounds like your method does not embed the artwork into the mp3 file, thus when transfering the file to any other device the artwork is missing.

Oct 20, 2013 10:26 AM in response to Timbuktu

The problem starts way before I synch or even connect my iPhone. I will upload a cd directly into my iTunes, it will accept all the tracks, but not the artwork. I will drag and drop the artwork from my desktop after right-clicking the album and opening the part where you're supposed to be able to drop or browse for your artwork, I drop it in there but it doesn't retain the image. It disappears as soon as I click "save." Or if I right-click the individual tracks I'll get the screen I posted above, in which the artwork tab is not even accessible, it's grated out.


This is all way before I even attempt to put the music on my iPhone.

Oct 20, 2013 1:59 PM in response to Chris CA

Perhaps I can just try importing CDs in a different file format? Ironically, this is only a problem with CD's I buy and import directly, rather than music that I download for free online (which also makes it even more frustrating. You would think if I were to go out and buy music instead of stealing it, I would at least be able to have the official album artwork with no problem).

Dec 27, 2013 4:00 AM in response to yaynana

I had the same problem, although all my files are (already) in the AIFF format

The only thing that helped me, was to copy-paste the songs by creating an AIFF version of a song that was already in AIFF. You just reproduce an exact copy. I deleted the first version and selected the song once more. This made it possible to add artwork.

It was sufficient to copy/paste (creat AIFF) one song from the entire album to make it work.

May 29, 2014 11:21 PM in response to yaynana

I just figured this out ten minutes ago, and found the solution.


Sometimes, music files- CD or .mp3/wav files- can't be modified by setting.


Get to where the music files are, select the ones you'd want to edit, and right click -> "Properties" and uncheck the "Read-Only" box. Apply and save the changes.


You should be able to go on to iTunes and change the info of the songs now.


Hope this helped!

Jul 27, 2014 12:34 PM in response to Adriaensen

This turned out to be the only way to force the mp3s on one of my CDs where the artwork picture I'd originally put in was "broken" --only the top 15% of it appeared, and I couldn't erase or replace it until I duplicated the mp3s, erased the originals, and did the standard import on the copies.


Does anybody have any idea why this worked or why it was necessary? Strange.


:-)

Feb 24, 2016 12:47 AM in response to yaynana

The fact is apple representatives do not know how to read...when someone states a problem...it is very easy to troubleshoot a solution,

they just can't give a straight answer, because their ******** mac people. Shake the little madoo hickey and rub the wingdinger and a genie will come out

and shoot you.


Sometimes when transferring files the MP3 file (for example) will sometimes end up in read only status, unclick the read only status then maybe it will accept the album image file after...wherever you got it from. If it still doesn't work than it is the Apple iTunes program itself, because it used to be no problem to attach an image to your music selections. Because I'm on this same blog site looking for the same answer. The fact is who cares if you didn't buy the music from Apple music store, a program should benefit the user...not the company. people have their own MP3 file it a fact, and they also want images attached in the program...so it looks nice and organized.

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iTunes won't accept album artwork.

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