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How to Add Album Art in iTunes Music Library

Adding album art to your music library in iTunes can enhance the visual appeal and help you easily identify albums. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to add album art in iTunes:

Why Add Album Artwork

Here are some key reasons for adding album artwork in your iTunes music library:

  • Enhances visual appeal – Having album art makes your music library more visually appealing compared to just text listings. It adds more color and visual interest.
  • Helps identify albums – With album art, you can easily recognize albums instead of just reading text. The visuals help jog your memory.
  • Looks cool – Album art simply makes your iTunes music library look much cooler and more professional. It shows you care about properly tagging your music.

Automatically Retrieve Album Artwork

iTunes can automatically fetch album artwork for your music library from the iTunes Store. Here is how:

iTunes (PC/Mac)

  • Go to the menu option:
  • File > Library > Get Album Artwork
  • This will retrieve album art for your entire iTunes music library

This auto album art only works if the albums exist in the iTunes Store. For any missing art, you’ll need to add it manually.

Manually Add Album Art

To manually add album art:

Single Song

  1. Right click the song
  2. Select Get Info
  3. Go to Artwork tab
  4. Click Add Artwork and select the image file
  5. Click OK

Entire Album

  1. Select all tracks in the album
  2. Right click any selected track
  3. Select Get Info
  4. Go to Artwork tab
  5. Click Add Artwork and choose image
  6. Click OK

The artwork will be added to all tracks in that album.

Tips

  • Use high quality album art images for best visual quality
  • The ideal image dimensions are around 1400 x 1400 pixels
  • Save album art images in standard formats like JPG, PNG, GIF
  • Keep the file sizes reasonable – too large files can slow down iTunes
  • Store the images in a dedicated folder for easy access
  • For consistency, use the same album art naming format like AlbumName_art.jpg

Add Art for Non-Music Files

You can also add album art for files not purchased from iTunes, like your personal music collection. Just follow the same manual steps listed above to add album covers to those tracks.

Find Album Art on the Internet

If your music files don’t have any album artwork, you can find suitable images on the internet.

Best sites to source album art:

Make sure there are no copyright issues with any images you use.

View Album Artwork in iTunes

Here is how you can view the album artwork in iTunes after you’ve added them:

iTunes (after version 12)

  • Album art appears automatically when you play songs or view albums
  • It shows up in Recently Added, Artists view, Albums view etc.

Older iTunes Versions

  • Go to the bottom left Artwork pane
  • Or switch to Cover Flow view using the top menu
  • Use arrow keys to flip through albums covers

Conclusion

Adding album covers is an easy way to make your iTunes music library look great while helping you identify albums faster. Follow the tips in this guide to properly source and add album artwork in iTunes. Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!

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