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How do I add album artwork to my Apple iTunes library?

I'm a huge fan of Apple's iTunes music player and am pretty darn excited to see the new iTunes 7 release that includes movies, games, and so much more. Most interestingly, it now has some new views of the library that are darn reminiscent of a jukebox. But I don't have artwork for any of my albums!

Dave's Answer:

I've been poking around with Apple's new iTunes 7.0 release and also think it's darn cool what they've added. There are now three different "views" you can choose, one of which really does look just like the modern digital Wurlitzer, with a 'flippable' library of album cover art.

Problem is, that's not so cool if your album covers all look like this:

Apple iTunes 7.0: Album Cover Browser View

Boring, eh? Here's the really GREAT news, however! Switch to the center view, what I think they call "grouped view" and you'll see this:

Apple iTunes 7.0: Album Cover Grouped Song View

Now, choose Edit --> Select All and every single track will be highlighted in your entire library. Right click (e.g., Control-Click) and you'll get the following pop-up menu:

You can see I've already highlighted the key choice too. Select Get Album Artwork and you'll promptly be asked:

Apple iTunes 7.0:Are you sure you want to get Album Artwork?

Choose "Get Album Artwork" and find something else to do. It'll take a good long while to get all the covers, especially if your collection is like mine, with over 400 different CDs in my library. It'll give you some sense of progress, though:

Apple iTunes 7.0: Getting Album Cover Art

Finally, when it's done, the album cover browser is far, far more visually interesting:

Now the bad news: Less than 50% of my 400 CDs matched sufficiently well to be given cover artwork from the iTunes Music Store. (sigh) Maybe you'll have better luck!

Hope that helps you out! If you're running an earlier version of iTunes, it's definitely time to upgrade!

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Comments

That niffty click in the library is nice. However, I find that google image search is just the thing for the albums it misses. Simply set your browser window and iTunes side by side. Highlight all the titles in the album missing the artwork, click on your browser google the album artwork and drag from the browser into the art box on group view.

Posted by: Mike at September 15, 2006 4:08 AM

thanx for the help! :)

Posted by: nat at March 17, 2007 1:37 PM

Art4itunes.com makes quick work of taking my iTunes Library and finding about 75% of the album artwork that the iTunes Store can't. I use it whenever I need to do an overhaul of iTunes or have to create a new Library. Just Drag and Drop the Image from your web browser to the image well in the Get Info window of all the track in the album, like the above comment says. Yeah, its manual, which sucks, but anyone got a better way to do this?

Posted by: Steve Blue at May 2, 2007 9:42 PM

For the album art that can't be retrieved by selecting "get album art". Simply Google the name of the album/artist and select Image instead of Web and you will 9/10 times find the album art. In iTunes, click on the album you want to add the art to. Go to FILE, GET INFO, ALBUM ART. Then add and find where you've saved the album art on your desktop. Phew seems like hard work, but i did about 50 albums over one hour.

Posted by: Tania at June 28, 2007 4:58 PM

Have you tried FixTunes. Check your songs agains an online database, correct the song details and it will be the easiest of things finding the album art at itunes store. Premium edition of Fixtunes een gets dat for you

Posted by: Stoney at July 28, 2007 4:10 AM

Hi Dave,

I had the same problem (lots of music, no covers) a few years ago and decided to make a website that did the job for me, because Google's image search can be a bit hit and miss.

Now that iTunes has the cover search feature it is a bit easier but as you say it isn't perfect - so you might find CoverHunt.com useful for the rest :)

Cheers, Ross

Posted by: Ross from CoverHunt.com at December 30, 2007 8:25 PM

cheers dave for sorting my album covers out nice one

Posted by: dave stewart at January 10, 2008 7:37 PM

This in theory works, but you have to have an itunes music store account, to have one of these you need a credit card with a billing address in US, UK or AUS, so if you live in South Africa, you are still a bit screwed....

Posted by: Saffer at January 22, 2008 3:12 AM

do i have to have an itune account to get artwork,if so what is the charge? and is it per album or per month and can i close the account when done?

Posted by: howard at January 29, 2008 6:50 AM

ive changed the album artwork more than once from my own pictures
but when i changed the album cover, the first picture keeps showing up
how do i get rid of the old album cover?

Posted by: Morgan at April 24, 2008 5:44 PM

I tried what you said about getting album art work but it keeps saying error 3005

Posted by: Maybelle at September 2, 2008 11:43 AM

I recently purchased Fixtunes for iTunes and started processing my library of about 5,000 songs. While Fixtunes does have some nice features and configurable options, I don't believe it's ready for "prime time" on OS X 10.5 at least. Here are some noted drawbacks:

1. Operation. Has been iffy at best. I've had quite a few crashes and freezes. My system is relatively "clean" and my MBP is only a few weeks old. It uses a proprietary server to compare the updates to and operation is slower than I would have expected. It takes almost a second per song and with 5000 songs, it's not just a quick process even if it doesn't crash. I have fiber to my house and run sustained D/L speeds of about 4MB/sec to my 2.4Ghz, 4GB ram MBP. I know the
slowness is not an issue on my end.

2. Support. You'd think purchasing the program would give you access to a different level of support, not. It seems the "support" system is
via a user forum. I tried to register in the forum and got repeated "database" errors. Those kinds of errors are a backend issue and not a
client problem. So not being able to even register to post a question about my problem, I was left to use their "billing issue only" web
contact to tell them my forum and product issues. They say there's a 24 hour turnaround time. The clock is ticking and I'll update tomorrow
as to how true that claim is.

As it stands right now, it's not worth $25 without some bug fixes and dedicated support for users who purchase the program. Another issue is
the trial. The trial only works for 50 songs and unfortunately that's not long enough to see technical issues such as frequent crashes. In
addition, the site shows version 5.32 for download for Mac. when you run it and click on "About" it shows version 5.31. Indicative of poor
code quality assurance. For that to get out the door without being caught is very sloppy.

Posted by: NavyWings at September 28, 2008 11:56 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!