After a few hours of searching I could not find a thread for such a question so i am sorry if it has been posted. I was just given an Ematic mp3 player as a gift, and I plan to use it since it will come in handy in places I don't plan on taking my few hundred dollar ipod. Anyway, it says that it only plays mp3 files. Almost 95 % of my files are that, but I have some m4a mixed in. I was hoping to get all my songs on there, so is there a fast way to figure out which files in Itunes are m4a, and to mass convert them. I know you can do them one at a time with a right click in itunes. Basically, I want to have all songs as mp3, I have some m4a but I don't know which now, I would prefer not to spend 20 hours. Third party software is fine by me as long as it is reliable. (I already have accepted the fact that the songs downloaded from Itunes before going to Amazon will not work) Thanks for any help.
A quick way to group all your .m4a files together is a simple search in Finder. Just type in "itunes .m4a" and they all pop up to do with them what you will. It's deceivingly simple. I'm sure someone on here can recommend a good converter.
Yep did that literally a minute before you suggested. Only issue is, how do I delete them from itunes, keep the files, convert, and then put them back on itunes not as duplicates? Unless just converting the files will work without deleting from Itunes.
Once you figure out which ones you need to convert, here's a program that has served me well. It's on CNET and was reviewed by them, so you know it'll work without a hitch. You can load multiple files at once and mass-convert. I wouldn't know of an easy way to do what you're aiming for, but what I would suggest is to rip the music files away from wherever they're being stored and store them in a folder (marked as "Before" or something to distinguish) on your desktop, create another folder (marked "After") and tell the converter to store the files in that folder so that you can find them easily and put them back into iTunes. Then you could sort your library by the song name, and any duplicate you find you can delete. Since you moved the original file, iTunes won't be able to play the .m4a, so you'll know which one to delete. I know that's really labor-intensive, but I can't think of another way to do it.
Converting them without deleting them might work, but it depends on the settings. When you import them, there's the option of iTunes simply knowing the location of the music, or actually copying it over to another folder, I'm guessing it's the latter, and simply converting it should be fine, but an alternative is to copy the files to a different folder, delete the ones on iTunes, and then re-import the converted batch.
My sincere thanks sir. I was just about to post that i give in and would do it one at a time. I will do it the way you suggested now. Edit: Oops, the converter is windows only. Ill try to find the mac version and report back if I get it.
Ah, that would be a problem. I looked around CNET some more and found this one; it's advertised as a video format converter, but it says in the description it works with m4a and mp3 formats, too. Can't tell you if it works, for obvious reasons.
Got one. I have it running right now, it's pretty slow, but at least I don't have to waste my time with it. http://www.nch.com.au/switch/mp3.html?gclid=CLuOpKT9yqkCFYTt7Qod7k6bLw
I may be completely misunderstanding your problem, so apologies if I am, but have you tried the following? 1) In iTunes, go to Edit --> Preferences, and then in the General tab, click on Import Settings. Make sure Import Using is set to MP3 Encoder, and then pick your bitrate. 2) Go to View --> Options, and make sure Kind is checked. 3) On your music screen, click on the top of the Kind column, so that all your music is sorted according to what type of file it is. 4) Holding shift, click on the first .m4a file. Without letting go of shift, scroll down to the last .m4a file. All your .m4a songs should now be highlighted. 5) Right click, and select "Create MP3 Version". Don't click anywhere else, or else getting rid of the duplicates will take some extra time. 6) Once all the songs are converted (the time will depend on how many you're converting), right click the highlighted files again, and hit Delete. Those are the directions on a PC, but I can't imagine it'd be drastically different on a Mac. Again, if I'm completely misunderstanding what you're asking, apologies. I went through something similar a few years ago, when I switched from an iPod to a Zune. I've since gone back, but I kept all the songs as MP3s just in case I do something like that again in the future.
Sad day. I tried both the one I found and yours. They both do the job, but the change the file name and delete the track info, so Itunes does not see it as a copy. Looks like I'll have to do it one at a time. Thanks for trying to help Captain and Kamazar.
Yep yep yep. That works. You really saved me a good five hours there. Thanks for the help. Guess I never had to leave itunes then. Oh yeah they were listed AAC audio files though under kind, and the mp3 files were all MPEG audio file in case anyone ever looks at this to do the same thing.
