How can I have iTunes automatically rip music CDs?

One of the undersung areas of the Mac OS X "System Preferences" pane is "CD and DVD", and that's where you need to travel to get things set up the way you want. Well, actually, it sounds like you also want to tweak iTunes itself to automatically start ripping music CDs that you put into the computer too, yes?

Both of these are easy, but you do need to know where you're going on you Macintosh to get things set up properly.

Let's start by going to the Apple menu on the top left of your screen and selecting System Preferences... from the drop down menu.

Now you'll see:

Click on CDs & DVDs and you'll see:

You'll want to tweak yours to look like mine: make sure you have "Open iTunes" selected when you "insert a music CD".

The other half of the task is to jump into iTunes. You'll want to choose Preferences... from the "iTunes" menu, which brings up:

Notice where I've highlighted. There are a bunch of options for what iTunes should do upon insertion of a CD, including Show CD, Begin Playing, Ask to Import CD, Import CD, and Import CD and Eject. You want one of the latter two.

While you're here, click on "Import Settings..." and make sure it's set as you desire. I generally import content into Mp3 form so it's maximally portable across different music players, but your mileage may vary.

Now quit iTunes and slip a music CD into the computer. What happens?