Steps
Automated Method
- Open iTunes. Highlight the songs you want to get cover art for. To select all songs in your iTunes library press ?/apple A on a Mac or Ctrl A on a PC.
- Click on Advanced at the top of the screen and then click on Get Album Artwork.
- Agree to the prompts and wait for the album art to download.
Manual Method
- Decide which songs you would like to add artwork to. Try searching for the album in iTunes. Play a song to make sure the album has no artwork.
- Locate the artwork. An excellent source is wikipedia. Wikipedia has an article on almost every album, and they include a picture of said albums. Click on the artwork for a larger image and drag the image to your desktop or right click and copy the image.
- Highlight the song(s) in an album that is missing artwork by clicking on it. To highlight multiple songs click on the first song, hold down the shift key, and click on the last song in the album. To highlight multiple songs that are not grouped together click on a song and click on the other songs while holding down the ?/apple key on a Mac or Ctrl on a PC.
- Press ?/apple I on a Mac, Ctrl I on a PC, or go to File and Get Info. A window should pop up labeled Multiple Item Information. Drag or paste the image into the box labeled Artwork. Under Album make sure all the songs have the same album name by typing the correct album and checking the box.
- Click OK and wait for the computer to finish adding the artwork.
- Add the songs to your iPod if needed.
- Enjoy listening to your improved songs!
Tips
- If you download songs from iTunes they will already have artwork.
- Now that you have album artwork you can change your visual settings on iTunes in order to see them. If you cannot see your album artwork when playings songs click on View and Show Artwork or press ?/apple G on a Mac and Ctrl G on a PC. You also play around with how the albums are displayed.
- For a single song simply play the song and drag the image desired as the artwork into the box that says Drag Album Artwork Here. If you do not see this box go to View and Show Artwork or press ?/apple G on a Mac and Ctrl G on a PC. This method cannot be used for editing mulitple songs at the same time.
- Occasionally you will have to use an image search to find an album. Your album pictures don't have to be square, but they generally line up the best that way. Also make sure they are not blurry or pixelated.
Warnings
- If you add album artwork to songs on iTunes it will not be on your ipod and vice versa. Try putting artwork on iTunes songs, deleting the songs from your iPod, and then adding them to your iPod again.
- Adding artwork may slow down your computer. Stop playing any songs and exit out of other applications if it is a problem.
- The automated method usually fails--chances are iTunes will not be able to recognize your songs, especially if they are missing information or are not in the iTunes database.
Things You'll Need
- iPod
- iTunes
- Internet access
Sources and Citations
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Album Artwork for an iPod or iTunes. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.