Saving ALL music files independent of iTunes

[tws1961]

I want to convert and save any and all music administered by iTunes to a seperate external drive.

I want to convert AAC to mp3; how do I do that? What program will do that?

Is there a different media player I could use instead of iTunes?

Once AAC files are converted to mp3, can't I just drag and drop the converted files to a external drive.

Here's the issue;

I have About 105 gigs of music about a quater from original music, quater from cds and the other half from iTunes and Amazon. I want to save all of these files to an external drive separate of the home drive and iTunes. I know I can just burn each albumn to cd but that would take hundreds and hundreds of CDs. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I'm running mountain Lion with iTunes being 10.7.

 

[Dave Braine]

Is your music already in iTunes? iTunes will convert to mp3 and then you can just drag and drop from iTunes to your external.

 

[tws1961]

Is your music already in iTunes? iTunes will convert to mp3 and then you can just drag and drop from iTunes to your external.

Dave,

Where do I find this ability to convert within iTunes? Also, after converting, I guess I should open finder and pull drag and drop files from there?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[HenryAZ]

Where do I find this ability to convert within iTunes? Also, after converting, I guess I should open finder and pull drag and drop files from there?

Before doing this, go into iTunes Preferences, General, and set your import settings to be MP3, and set the quality level you want to create.

Then...
Highlight a song (or a bunch), right-click and select "Create MP3 Version".

As for saving separate copies, just find your iTunes library in Finder and drag copies somewhere else. If it is to the same Volume, make sure to Copy, not Move.

 

[tws1961]

Before doing this, go into iTunes Preferences, General, and set your import settings to be MP3, and set the quality level you want to create.

Then...
Highlight a song (or a bunch), right-click and select "Create MP3 Version".

As for saving separate copies, just find your iTunes library in Finder and drag copies somewhere else. If it is to the same Volume, make sure to Copy, not Move.

OK. If I change the import settings to mp3 that only applies to what I rip, correct? I mean, anything I download from Apple or Amazon digitally gets converted to AAC automatically, correct? Or does this import setting apply globally?

As for changing format of all the existing files, I guess go into song view and highlight the entire library, right click and select the format I want. So, if all are currently AAC, theoretically I should be able to change to mp3, which adds another 100 plus gigs to my drive and then move all these mp3 copies to another drive? Excuse my ignorance everyone.

 

[HenryAZ]

OK. If I change the import settings to mp3 that only applies to what I rip, correct? I mean, anything I download from Apple or Amazon digitally gets converted to AAC automatically, correct? Or does this import setting apply globally?

As for changing format of all the existing files, I guess go into song view and highlight the entire library, right click and select the format I want. So, if all are currently AAC, theoretically I should be able to change to mp3, which adds another 100 plus gigs to my drive and then move all these mp3 copies to another drive? Excuse my ignorance everyone.

Changing your import settings affects your imports, yes. But it also determines what your right-click menu will display as an option when you highlight a song or group of songs. If you have import set to WAV, your right-click option will be to create a WAV version. Set it to MP3, and your option will be to create an MP3 version (don't forget to set the quality level, too for your MP3 "imports")

Yes, the process will create the MP3 version in addition to the AAC version. What I usually do is save off the AAC versions to another location, first. Then I create the MP3's in iTunes, and save them off to the other location, too. Then go back and delete the AAC version from iTunes leaving only the MP3's. That makes it easier to burn MP3 CD's, which is what I do for my car. It also makes it so I can freely delete tracks from iTunes which I don't happen to like at the moment, because I can go get them back later from the backup location easily.

 

[tug]

why go to all that trouble? just have your music downloaded to your desktop then use this;

http://all2mp3.en.softonic.com/mac

have that to place your converted file into a folder you have created in your ext. drive.

you could even drag the folder from your ext. to sit on the right of your dock for convenience and use a standalone mp3 player such as;

http://voxapp.didgeroo.com/

and the folder you have dragged from your external will not take up any room on your internal drive.

 

[tws1961]

Changing your import settings affects your imports, yes. But it also determines what your right-click menu will display as an option when you highlight a song or group of songs. If you have import set to WAV, your right-click option will be to create a WAV version. Set it to MP3, and your option will be to create an MP3 version (don't forget to set the quality level, too for your MP3 "imports")

Yes, the process will create the MP3 version in addition to the AAC version. What I usually do is save off the AAC versions to another location, first. Then I create the MP3's in iTunes, and save them off to the other location, too. Then go back and delete the AAC version from iTunes leaving only the MP3's. That makes it easier to burn MP3 CD's, which is what I do for my car. It also makes it so I can freely delete tracks from iTunes which I don't happen to like at the moment, because I can go get them back later from the backup location easily.

Thanks for your assist.

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Thank you to everyone.


Comfortably numb.....