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Navigation Link: IntroductionNavigation Link: Making the Move to iTunesNavigation Link: Importing Music from CDsNavigation Link: Getting to Know the iTunes Music StoreNavigation Link: Using the iTunes Music StoreNavigation Link: Finding Specific SongsNavigation Link: Purchasing MusicNavigation Link: Browsing and Searching Your iTunes LibraryNavigation Link: Using Playlists to Organize Your MusicNavigation Link: Creating Smart PlaylistsNavigation Link: Listening to Internet RadioNavigation Link: Importing Music to Your iPodNavigation Link: Other Ways to Use Your iPodNavigation Link: Burning Your Music to a CDNavigation Link: Sharing Your Music on Your Local NetworkNavigation Link: Understanding Your Digital Music RightsNavigation Link: Learn More About iTunes Apple Online Learning
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Importing Music from CDs
 
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With iTunes, it’s easy to transfer your favorite music from a CD to your computer. It’s even faster and easier than copying your CD to a cassette tape. When you insert a music CD into your computer, iTunes opens automatically. And if you enjoy only a few of the songs on your CD, you can import just those songs to your digital music library.
 
When you import your music, iTunes transfers the data from your CD to your hard disk and converts each song to a file that iTunes can play. This “compression” process does not sacrifice the quality of your music. Most people can’t hear the difference between the music played from a CD and the compressed music played in iTunes.

 
Tips  Step by Step

Get the best quality compression while importing music
When you import songs from CDs to your iTunes library, you can set the type and quality of compression that iTunes uses to copy the song. To do so, open iTunes Preferences and then go to the Importing pane. From the Import Using pop-up menu, choose an audio format. MP3 provides high quality with moderate file size. AAC is the format of songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. AAC provides higher quality with smaller file sizes than MP3. Other available formats are AIFF or WAV, which are standard audio formats that provide excellent quality but generate large files. You can also choose the Apple Lossless Encoder to produce an audio file with the same quality but about half the file size of an AIFF or WAV file.

How does iTunes know which songs are on your CD?
iTunes uses an online service (known as the CDDB) that stores song identification information (also known as tags). CDDB supplies the album title, artist and track names, the year the CD was recorded, and more for almost two million albums. If you’re connected to the Internet, iTunes automatically connects to CDDB and searches for the tags when you insert a CD into your computer.

How much music can you store on your computer or iPod?
You can store more music in iTunes than most people are likely to own or ever buy in a lifetime. You can have thousands of songs in iTunes and still have plenty of room for all the other things you do on your computer. For example, you can store about 10,000 songs on a 40GB hard disk or 40GB iPod.

Copy music from a CD to iTunes by following these steps:

  1. Insert a music CD into your computer. Notice that iTunes opens automatically.
  2. In the list that appears, use the checkboxes to select or deselect the songs you want to import. Songs that are selected will be imported.
  3. After you’ve selected the songs you want to import, click the Import button. iTunes will begin copying the music from your CD to your iTunes music library.
  4. After the songs are imported, click the Eject Disk button.
  5. Select Library in the Source list to view all the music in your iTunes library, including the songs you just imported.


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