Adding Album Cover Art or Images in iTunes

Scan or download album cover artwork from CDs that you rip into iTunes in a graphics format that iTunes understands and link those graphics to the songs and albums you play on iTunes.

Songs that you buy from the iTunes Music Store typically include an image of the album cover art or a photo of the artist. You can see the artwork in the lower-left corner of the iTunes window by clicking the Show/Hide Artwork button. The artwork changes for each song or album that you select.

Unfortunately, you don't get free artwork like this when you rip an audio CD — the discs aren't manufactured with digital cover art stashed somewhere on an empty track. With a scanner, however, you can scan the cover art and save it in a graphics format that iTunes (and its underlying graphics technology, QuickTime) understands — JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, or Photoshop. Or with a Web browser, you can visit Web pages to scout for suitable art; just Ctrl-click (Mac) or right-click an image (PC) to download and save the image on your hard drive. (Most graphics on the Web are in JPEG or GIF format, so you don't have to convert anything.)

To add the artwork to a song, select the song in your iTunes library, and drag the artwork's image file from a folder into the artwork viewing area in the bottom-left corner of the iTunes window.

To add the same image as artwork for an entire album of songs (rather than just individual songs), select the album in Browse view first (or select all the songs in the album in song list view), and then drag the image file into the artwork viewing area.

You can also add the artwork to an album while editing multiple songs at once. Follow these steps:

1. In Browse view, select the album in your iTunes library.

Click the Browse button to switch to Browse view so that an Album column appears on the right side of the iTunes window. Click an album to select it.

2. Choose File, Get Info or press Command-I (Mac) or Ctrl-I (PC).

A warning message displays: Are you sure you want to edit information for multiple items?

3. Click Yes to edit information for multiple items.

The Multiple Song Information dialog appears.

4. Enable the Artwork field by selecting its check box.

When you add a check mark to a field, iTunes assumes you want that field changed in all the selected songs. Make sure that no other check box is selected except Artwork.

5. Drag the graphics file to the Artwork panel.

Drag the graphics file directly over the blank Artwork well in the Multiple Song Information dialog.

6. Click OK to make the change.

A warning message displays: Are you sure you want to change the artwork for multiple items?

7. Click Yes to change the artwork.

iTunes adds the artwork for the entire album.

To remove the artwork from a song, view the artwork in a larger window, or resize the artwork, choose File, Get Info and click the Artwork tab. You can add a different image, add several images, delete the images with the Add or Delete buttons, or resize images with the size slider.

You can remove the artwork for an entire album by opening the Multiple Song Information dialog (choose File, Get Info after selecting the album), enabling the Artwork field, and then clicking OK. Because you haven't added anything to the Artwork field, iTunes replaces the artwork with nothing, effectively deleting the artwork.

Comments (19)

Posted by sam FEBRUARY 16, 2009 | 08:53PM
this didnt work plz improve

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Posted by Bibs FEBRUARY 19, 2009 | 08:31PM
I did something unusual today (by mistake) - While dragging an image to the artwork in iTunes, I dragged a huge JPEG image (20 MB) to the album. Only after iTunes had delay in displaying the artwork did I understand that I'd dragged the wrong one. The images I usually add are under 200 kb. But this one has fattened the size of the audio file (original audio size - 5 MB; now its 25 MB). Did the usual way to delete the artwork and other ways too. Now the artwork shows empty, but the file size remains the same (25 MB). Any ways to get the file size back to normal? Tried opening thru Winamp and other applications also and make file info changes, but nothing helps.

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Posted by John FEBRUARY 28, 2009 | 06:47AM
Just select a song... then right click on a song.. then press "Get info" click on tab(Artwork) Then you should be able to add a cover. If not.. update your itunes to the newest version and try it again.

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Posted by Matt B. MARCH 17, 2009 | 02:51AM
this is exactly what i was looking for! OCD prevents me from not having artwork for all my albums. thanks!

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Posted by Phaedra MARCH 26, 2009 | 04:13PM
This worked very well for me - thanks!

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Posted by Koni APRIL 07, 2009 | 04:29AM
Great! Things that I couldn't find in any formal manual. Thanks!!

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Posted by mt APRIL 10, 2009 | 05:12PM
Thanks so much!! This was so helpful

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Posted by Scott APRIL 19, 2009 | 09:01PM
This doesn't work for me. I built a <1MB Photoshop file and dragged it onto the "artwork" window in iTunes. Even after multiple attempts, it does not appear in the iTunes flip chart of album covers.

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Posted by Claudia MAY 02, 2009 | 01:03PM
Very good instructions. But still there are some albums I can't attach images to. The images are in the correct formt (jpg) and are not too heavy. I really don't understand. I can drag them into the "get information" box where you edit info, but they are not attached to the songs afterwards.

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Posted by RC A MAY 18, 2009 | 02:14AM
Question: Is it possible to add different images to songs that are from the same Music album (without deleting the album-name in info)? I started adding the Single-covers until i found three songs from the same album displaying one of the Single-covers for all three songs.

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Posted by Ashley MAY 20, 2009 | 10:24AM
The process of acquiring and obtaining and adding artwork will be different in a PC versus a Mac. However, both PC's and Mac's have the following option: open iTunes, click the menu option Advanced, then click 'Get Artwork.' iTunes will automatically download all available artwork. This works surprisingly well. The only albums you won't have art for will be obscure albums or ones you created yourself. To add art you create yourself (or download online yourself) in a PC, list your music in 'Album View.' (this is the middle view option that has six squares in it). Then right-click the album you want to add art to, choose Get Info, then click Yes, then you will see the Multiple Item Information screen. Double-Click on the blank artwork square on the right. Browse out to any art you have created yourself and click open. Voila! Hope this is helpful.

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Posted by rk3dov MAY 22, 2009 | 01:45PM
Try iGCover (http://igcover.sourceforge.net/) to download artwork from google.

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Posted by Metee MAY 23, 2009 | 10:19PM
This works perfectly. Just follow the instructions. It was driving me crazy that I did not have my cover art, but every single album has cover art to it now for my IPOD Thanks so much for writing this article.

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Posted by Dave JUNE 04, 2009 | 03:25PM
The winner solution is from Ashley at no. 11, this is how it works on PC! Thx a lot! This way you add the artwork to all of the songs and not just to one.

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Posted by bert todd JUNE 12, 2009 | 00:32AM
thank you so much was this helpful.l

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Posted by franca JUNE 12, 2009 | 10:37AM
helped a lot, i was dragging the image into the wrong area... thank so much! you freaking rockkkk! :D

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Posted by Randy JUNE 16, 2009 | 03:11PM
Can anyone tell me why this happens? If I load artwork for a music file in iTunes, it doesn't show up in WinAmp and visa versa - artwork loaded from WinAmp doesn't show up in iTunes. It's driving me nuts!

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Posted by dave JUNE 19, 2009 | 10:11AM
worked greeat ty

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Posted by Ashley JUNE 30, 2009 | 00:48PM
THANK YOU!!! this worked. thanks very much, the music note was doing my head in and this has worked so thanks. x

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