How do I download music to my RCA Lyra MP3 Player from Mac iTunes?

I have a similar setup and have decided that just as us Mac users live in a separate world, one that's perhaps just a bit brighter and cheerier, but different nonetheless, so people who use -- or have to use -- iTunes are in a slightly different universe too.

If you have MP3 files on your computer, adding them to the RCA Lyra is a breeze, but the real challenge is to get the audio files out of iTunes itself. A while back I ripped a copy of The Long Tail audio book from CD into my iTunes library so I could have it on my iPod, but let's try to push that same audio onto the Lyra too. Luckily, I have already long since changed my iTunes settings to rip everything into Mp3 format, not AAC format, as documented here: Get iTunes to rip into Mp3 format rather than AAC.

As a result, I'll just select one track within iTunes, then right click the mouse. This brings up:

Choose "Get Info" and lots of data is revealed:

The most important snippet is at the very bottom: it shows me exactly what folder contains all the MP3 audio files for this particular audio book / music CD. You can see it's in my iTunes Music folder, organized by author name, then by the fact that it's disk 5 of 7. I'll go there with the Finder and see:

Nicely and neatly organized. Good!

When I plug in my RCA Lyra, it pops up on the desktop just like any other device, so double-clicking it to open it up is easily done, revealing:

It's confusing when you look at this because if you're like me, you want to see a "MUSIC" folder. There is none: all mp3 files are supposed to be here at the topmost level.

You can do what lots of Lyra owners do and just dump all your music onto this topmost level, which works fine, but the Lyra can also navigate folders, so you can do what I did: just drop a folder full of Mp3 files onto the device.

Once I'd done that and disconnected the RCA Lyra from my Mac OS X system, it's easy to navigate through the different menus on the Lyra to find the audio book. First, the topmost level:

Chose "Folders" here and you'll then be shown:

Notice near the bottom where it says "The Long Ta"? That's the folder I just added (and yes, if you do this a lot you'll learn to create very short folder names!) When I move down to that and push the "play" button, voila! We're listening to Chris Anderson talk about The Long Tail:

I hope that'll get you started working with your RCA Lyra. If you find that your music in iTunes isn't already in Mp3 format, please see this: Convert music files to MP3 on your Mac. Caveat: if you purchased your music from the iTunes Music Store, you are out of luck with the Lyra as purchased songs can only be played on Apple audio devices (e.g., iPods). I know of no way around that.