Guru’s Guide to Uploading Music to iPod nano
Posted on June 3, 2008
Filed Under Consumer Electronics |
If you’ve been trying to figure out how to upload music to your new iPod nano, don’t worry. We’ll have you playing great songs on your iPod nano in no time. Of course, you might not be so interested in music. But maybe you bought your nanos to play videos or games. Well, good news! Once you’re uploading music to your nano you’ll know how to upload all the other goodies too.
1) Load the music files onto your computer
Most of us start out with our iPods by loading up the CDs we’ve collected over the years, so let’s start there. Copy the files from your CDs onto your computer’s hard disk so it’ll be available to your iPod manager. Note: If you use iTunes and have “Copy files to iTunes music folder” selected, you can skip copying the files to the PC — just having the CD in your computer’s CD drive will be enough.
2) Bring the music files into your iPod manager software
You’ll use an “iPod manager” application to handle moving files to and from the iPod. Apple’s free iTunes software is the iPod manager most of us use. You’re welcome to look at the other options — Wikipedia has a pretty good list. If you’re new to iPods I suggest you start with iTunes. Once you know what you do and don’t like about iTunes you’ll be in a better position to decide whether you want to look for a different iPod manager.
It’s important to know that you can download music from any vendor (Amazon, eMusic, etc) and still use iTunes to move files around. You don’t have to buy from the iTunes store unless you want to.
If you like to be able to find all your iPod music in one location on your computer, set up iTunes to copy all files into the library location. It’s an easy configuration: choose Edit, Preferences, Advanced from the menu and click the “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.” This is handy if you’re going to pull music from CDs — let iTunes manage copying the files off the CD for you.
Okay, you’re ready to import the music to iTunes. There’s several ways to import, but the most common is to click (from the top menu) File, Add Folder to Library, and find and select the directory that contains your music. Click the “OK” button to add the music to the library’s music list. You can also use the Control + O keys and select single files to add.
3) Connect your PC and your nano
You probably already did this, but just in case: connect your iPod nano to your computer with the the USB cable that came with your nano. You’ll know the connection’s successful when the left-hand menu in iTunes shows your iPod.
Next you need to decide if you want to let iTunes handle synchronizing with your iPod or if you want to handle things manually. I like the “manually manage” approach — it lets me decide which files to move to my nano. It also lets me synch up different computers to just one iPod.
4) Finally! Start uploading music to your nano
If you decide to let iTunes manage the uploads, click your iPod’s icon and select “Sync” in the lower right corner.
If you decided to manage uploading manually you have a one-time setup to complete. Click your iPod’s icon and select the “Manually manage music and videos” checkbox on the iTunes screen. Now, select the music you want and drag it onto the iPod icon.
5) Be sure to eject your iPod
Always, always, always click the eject button on the lower-right corner of the iTunes screen. Don’t risk corrupting your iPod files.
6) Time for more music!
Okay, you know how to upload music to your nano. Go forth and find more cool games, videos, books, or music for your iPod. See my web site for suggestions of where to find great downloads for reasonable prices.
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