The iTunes Library

When you import (rip, encode) music files from a CD, iTunes encodes it as an MPEG-4 AAC file (if you have QuickTime 6.2 or later installed) and places it in the iTunes Library. If you have an earlier version of QuickTime, iTunes encodes songs as MP3, or whatever format you last chose in the Importing preferences pane (see page 109). Once a song is in the Library list, you can add it to a customized playlist, as explained on the following page. Simply playing songs from a CD does not add them to the iTunes Library.

File formats

The MPEG-4 AAC format compresses song files to a smaller size than the MP3 format without a noticeable quality difference. We encoded a 3-minute, 20-second song into both formats: the MP3 file encoded to 3.8 megabytes, the MPEG-4 file to 3.1 megabytes, a significant storage savings when you have a large library.

If you have a highly refined ear for music, set the iTunes "Importing" preferences to encode songs in "Apple Lossless" format. This format encodes CD-quality music at half the size of the original CD format.

To add songs to the Library

1.	Insert a music CD into the computer CD drive.
2.	In the Detail window, click each song's checkbox that you want to add to the Library.
3.	Click the "Import" button in the top-right corner of the window.

You may already have music files somewhere on your computer that you want to add to the iTunes Library. There are two ways to do this:

• Either go to the File menu and choose "Add to Library…," then find and select your music files.

• Or drag a file from any location on your hard disk to the Library icon in the iTunes Source pane, as shown below.

Tip

Each song takes up at least 3 to 5 megabytes (depending on the file format specified in iTunes Preferences) of hard disk space, so make sure you have plenty of disk space available before you go crazy importing music files!

Drag a music file from anywhere on the computer to the "Library" icon in the Source pane. The small plus icon indicates the song will be copied to the iTunes Library.