Use iTunes to Crop and Split Files

Task #64

Difficulty Level 3

If you have an audio file that you would like to crop, you can use iTunes to perform the operation. It is not the most intuitive operation, but it is simple to use. This is handy when you want to remove extraneous sound at the beginning and end of an audio file. It is also useful for isolating a small snippet of sound from a file.

Using a similar set of operations, you can also separate a lengthy file into smaller chunks, each of which is a new audio file. This is great when you have extremely long audio files that you would like to split. This may happen, for example, when you record an LP record. It is easier to simply record an entire side of an album and then chop it up in iTunes later, rather than start and stop the recording process for each song on the album.

Did You Know?

When you extract a segment from an audio file in iTunes, iTunes gives the copy the same name as the original. It is probably a good idea to locate it as soon as you have finished creating it so that you can rename it. This may help prevent you from deleting the wrong file. If you are not sure which file is which, look at the time column of both tracks — the smaller one is the copy.

Apply It

After you complete the first conversion, you can continue separating audio segments from the file in a similar fashion. Select the start and end points as before and perform a new conversion for each segment that you would like to extract. Do not forget to rename the new file each time.