Apple's iTunes is one of the most popular digital music players and online music stores. Users can use the program to easily purchase and download music that can later be transferred to a CD or portable music player. Unfortunately, the music purchased from the iTunes store or imported from a CD is automatically converted into the protected AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format, which is unreadable in many music players. There is a simple method, however, for converting iTunes music files into regular MP3s that can be used in a variety of applications and devices.
Instructions
1. Open iTunes and if you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system, navigate to the "Edit" menu, click on "Preferences" and then Choose the "General" tab. If you are using a Macintosh computer, go to the "iTunes" menu and then click on "Preferences" and choose the "General" tab. Click on the button that says "Import Settings" and change the selection in the first drop-down menu from "AAC Encoder" to "MP3 Encoder." Adjust the bit rate to your desired quality. A bit rate of 128 kbps is standard, while higher bit rates are closer to CD-quality audio. Press "OK."
2. Return to the main iTunes window and navigate to your music library. Highlight the songs that you wish to convert to MP3. On the Windows version of iTunes, right-click on the selected files and choose the option to "Convert Selection to MP3." If you are using a Macintosh, press the "Control" button and click on the selected files, then choose the option to "Create MP3 Version."
3. Wait for the music files to be converted. If your iTunes files are in the protected AAC file format, you will receive an error message telling you "Protected files cannot be converted to other formats." You will not be able to convert your files to MP3 just yet but can use a few different methods to solve this problem.
4. Create an iTunes playlist of the protected AAC files that you wish to convert to MP3 files. Burn these files to a blank CD. Once you the CD has finished writing, import the files using iTunes. Because you have changed your import settings to use an MP3 encoder instead of an AAC encoder, the newly imported files will appear in the MP3 format. You can also use a virtual CD drive program such as NoteBurner or CD Emulator to avoid using physical CDs to burn your files. With a virtual CD drive, you can follow the same process as when using your real CD drive for burning and importing files, except that you must change the iTunes settings so that it recognizes your virtual CD drive instead of your real CD drive.
5. Use iTunes to play the files you have converted to MP3 to make sure there are no errors in playback. You may have to reconvert the selection if you are not satisfied with the audio quality of the MP3 files or if the song files are corrupted. After converting your files to MP3, you will have two versions of each song that you converted in your library, so you may delete the old AAC files in order to save space on your hard drive.
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