Can I copy iTunes playlist to USB?

Like many people, your music collection probably has staked out a large chunk of space on your hard drive. While free programs like Apple's iTunes makes it easy to purchase, organize and listen to your music, you need to do a little extra work to transfer the music files to other storage locations, like a USB drive. ITunes does not let you simply drag the song title or playlist to the USB drive icon. Instead, you need to drag the individual song files to the external storage device.

1. Plug your USB drive into your computer.

2. Open iTunes.

3. Make a list of the songs in the playlist that you want to move to the USB drive.

4. Browse to your iTunes directory on your computer.

5. Select the songs from the playlist.

6. Drag the files from the iTunes directory to the USB drive in Windows Explorer.

Many DJs do a majority of their playlist organization within iTunes – especially DJs who find themselves regularly trying out new DJ software and platforms. Doing things in iTunes means that you have a near-universal organizational structure that most softwares can use. But when you want to move 50+ iTunes playlists to another computer or device, what’s the best way? Keep reading for two ways.

Why Would DJs Need To Export iTunes Playlists?

There’s a few different situations that a DJ might find themselves in that would require moving around large numbers of iTunes playlists onto external drives. Here’s some that you might be able to relate to:

• Having a backup USB drive with your DJ music on it where the file structure mirrors your playlists [this is great for emergencies!]
• Moving a set of playlists to another DJ’s laptop to play a B2B set [I recently did this with a B2B Traktor set]
• Wanting to “start fresh” but keep a “cold storage” archive of all of your old playlists and associated tracks
• Wanting to export a bunch of DJ playlists to review in your car if you have a USB reader

Yes, we’re well aware that you can move your entire iTunes library to a new computer or create a backup of the entire library all together. This article is focused on moving playlists and the associated songs – not your entire collection.

Move It Manually [More Time Consuming, But Free]

This one is reasonable if you have 5-10 playlists that you want to move. iTunes actually allows you to click and drag the contents of individual playlists. Note that you can’t drag playlists or playlist folders from the left side of iTunes directly into a Finder folder – there’s a strange limitation here that likely “trying to reduce piracy”.

Instead, your best bet for a process is:

• make new folders on your USB drive for each playlist you want to export, named for each one
• click into each playlist in iTunes
• select all [control/command + A]
• drag the tracks into the folder

If you just have a few playlists, this is reasonable. If you’re like me and you have hundreds of playlists [447 and counting!], it’s completely unreasonable – move on to the paid solution below.

Playlist Export Tool [Paid, But Fast]

Here’s the real tool that everyone who has to do this process should probably use: it’s called Playlist Export. There are other scripts and apps out there that do something similar, but this one is the most efficient that I’ve found so far [feel free to correct me in the comments].

• App: Playlist Export
• Developer: Eric Daugherty
• Price: $4.99
• Available on: MacOS only, in the Mac App store

The app is really easy to use:

• open Playlist Export and it will read your default iTunes library [and tell you how many playlists and tracks you have]
• hit “New” to create a new Export Template [templates are useful if you have to do this again later!]
• Choose what playlists you want exported, if you want them to include .m3u playlist files [great for loading into other iTunes or Traktor installs], if you want the music files to be copies, etc
• Select an export directory, then hit Save
• Hit Export and your playlists will start writing to your selected folder!

The one drawback is that while your playlists are grouped by their master folders in the template manager, they are shown at the same level – so if you have multiple levels of folder hierarchy that you want in your USB drive, you might have to do some more work manually.

By Sarah ConnorUpdated on October 18, 2021

Summary:

Do you want to transfer music from iTunes to USB flash drive/external drive for backup? Want to copy iTunes songs to USB drive for listening in Car? This guide will show you two efficient ways to transfer music[M4P songs included] from iTunes to USB flash drive or external hard drive, the best way is to convert iTunes songs to MP3 and transfer them to USB drive.

iTunes keeps your media files like Apple Music, movies, songs, ringtones, and playlists, and it is the default software to deal with your music on iPhone/iPad/iPod. Since all iPhone/iPad can be synced with just a single iTunes library, if you want to change a new computer,you need to rebuild the whole music library, so you may need to export music from iTunes to USB or Flash Drive for backup. Sometimes, you may want to listen to iTunes music outside without iTunes, like MP3 player, iPod nano, car media, USB mobile speaker. However, how to export iTunes music and Apple Music M4P songs as MP3? If you want to take music out of iTunes library or transfer music from iTunes to USB flash drive, the best way is to convert iTunes music to MP3 firstly, then you can enjoy and use iTunes music freely.

CONTENTS:

Method 1: How to Transfer Music from iTunes to USB Drive Directly

iTunes is a good place to manage music, actually, users can directly transfer music from iTunes library to USB or flash drive, but you can’t directly transfer Apple Music songs from iTunes to USB drive or other external hard drive. If you have saved the non-copyright protected songs in the iTunes library, you can follow the detailed steps below to transfer music from iTunes to flash drive, this method works for both Mac and Windows computer.

Step 1. Run the iTunes on the computer and find the music or playlists that you want to transfer.

Step 2. Plug your USB drive or flash drive to the computer, then open the folder of your USB flash drive.

Step 3. On the iTunes library, please select the music that you want to transfer to USB flash drive and then drag them to USB drive.

Method 2: Copy iTunes Music from Stored Folder to USB or Flash Drive Directly

Besides the above free method to use iTunes to transfer music to USB or flash drive, users could open the folder where the songs are stored, then directly drag and drop them to the USB flash device. The most important thing is how to find the storage path of iTunes songs, please follow the steps below to find and open the storage folder of the iTunes music and transfer songs from computer to flash drive.

Step 1. Open the iTunes on the computer and find the music you want to transfer.

Step 2. Right click a songs and click “Song Info”

Step 3. Click “File” menu, at the bottom of the information windows, you will see the location item

Step 4. Then, follow this path to open the storage path, you could find the music save onto the folder, then copy or drag them to USB drive.

For Apple Music AAC audio file: Generally, the Apple Music songs you download are stored in this path
Location: C:\Users\[your compuer name]\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Apple Music

When you add Apple Music songs to iTunes library, you will find the kind of the songs is Apple Music AAC audio file. When you download Apple Music songs to the local drive, you will find the downloaded songs are DRM protected M4P file, so the Apple Music songs can’t be copied or transferred directly.

Method 2: Transfer Music from iTunes to USB/Flash Drive with iTunes Transfer

iTunes Transfer also is an iPhone iPad Manager tool,which not only can help you move music, photos, videos between iDevice and PC/external hard drive/iTunes freely without data loss,but also enables you transferring music/video to iPhone,iPad and iPod directly,during the transferring process,it will change automatically those formats which are incompatible with compatible ones.So you can use this iTunes Transfer to transfer music from iTunes to iPhone,then export music from iPhone to computer, to iTunes or to USB directly.

Part 1.Transfer iTunes Music to iPhone

Step 1.Run the Program and Connect iPhone to PC

First of all,please download and run the iTunes Transfer on the computer,then connect your iPhone device with the computer. Then click “Transfer iTunes Media to Device” icon on the main interface.

Step 2.Select Music Contents in iTunes

The program will detect all the media files in iTunes and show them by list on the pop-up window. By default, the entire library has been checked. But you can uncheck some items that you won’t transfer to your iDevice.

Step 3.Transfer Music from iTunes to iPhone

Click “Transfer” to start transferring selected music files to your iPhone and then click OK to complete the process.

Note: There is no worry about duplicate files as TunesGo – iTunes Transfer enables to automatically detect the duplicates and only transfer the exclusive contents from iTunes to iDevice.

Part 2: Transfer Music from iPhone to USB or Flash Drive

The TunesGo iTunes Transfer also can help you to back up music and other audio files from your iPhone, iPad or iPod to the computer easily, including Music, iTunes U,Podcasts,Ringtone,Audiobooks.So you can quick to export music from iPhone to USB or flash drive.

Step 1.Run the Program and Connect iPhone and USB Drive to PC

Launch TunesGo iTunes Transfer and connect your iPhone and USB Drive with the computer.

Step 2.Export Music from iPhone to USB Drive

Click on Music tab. Select the music you wish to transfer and then click Export > Export to PC > Choose your flash drive > Click Select Folder button to transfer.

Well done,all iTunes music be moved to the USB or Flash Drive for backup,if you want to play iTunes Music in a Car,you can plug your USB drive into the car player and start listening iTunes Music songs in your car.
Read More: How to Transfer Apple Music to USB Drive

Method 4: Transfer Apple Music to USB Drive

If you want to transfer protected iTunes M4P songs[Apple Music] to USB drive or SD Card for listening on other media players, you need to convert DRM protected M4P songs to MP3 at first, then transfer them to USB/Flash Drive, SD card or Android phone for listening. Because iTunes M4P file is a file extension for a protected audio file encoded with advanced audio codec [AAC], which is a lossy compression. That means, Apple iTunes purchased song are in .m4p format, which protected by Apples Fairplay DRM. That’s why people only can open it with iTunes and not able to play M4P on MP3 player or other non-Apple devices.

Part 1: Convert Apple Music/iTunes M4P Music to MP3

The UkeySoft Apple Music Converter and TunesBank Apple Music Converter, both also is an iTunes Music Converter and M4P to MP3 Converter, which not only can help you remove DRM from Apple Music, but also can converts copyrighted iTunes M4P songs to MP3/ M4A/ AC3/ AIFF/ AU/ MKA/ FLAC/ M4R with 16X conversion speed. Then you can play iTunes purchased songs anywhere with high quality preserved. The following part will show you how to convert iTunes music in to DRM-free MP3 audio files.

Key Features:

-Convert iTunes M4P Songs to MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, etc. -Remove DRM from Apple Music songs, playlist and albums. -Remove DRM from iTunes audiobooks and Audible audiobook. -Convert Audible AAX, AAX+, AA files to MP3, M4A, etc. -Convert iTunes M4B audiobook to MP3, M4A, FLAC, AAC, AC3, AU, AIFF, etc. -Convert and transfer audiobooks from iTunes to USB or flash drive directly.

-Extract audio from iTunes videos.

If you are a Mac user, TunesBank Apple Music Converter[Mac] is a beterr choice, it can help you convert Apple Music and iTunes songs in 5X faster speed, which is faster than any Apple music converter on the market. In addition, you can add more Apple Music, iTunes songs and video to the “Converting” list during converting process, only this brand can do that!

Step 1.Install Apple Music Converter on PC or Mac

Install the Apple Music Converter program to your computer and launch it. We also provides the Apple Music Converter for Mac version.Then iTunes will be automatically launched at the same time,and a whole iTunes library will be loads into the program.

Step 2.Select iTunes M4P Music Songs

Choose iTunes music from the left iTunes playlist column,check the ones that you want to convert to MP3.

Step 3.Choose MP3 as Output Format

You can find the “Output Settings” at the bottom of interface. At there, you can select “Output Format”. Choose “MP3” as output format,you can also convert iTunes Music M4P songs to MP3, M4A, AC3, AAC, AIFF, AU, FLAC, M4R and MKA. Select the format you want.

Step 4.Begin Convert iTunes M4P Music to MP3

Click “Start Convert” button to start converting selected iTunes music to MP3. After conversion, locate the songs and transfer them to the USB/Flash Drive.

Part 2: Transfer the Converted Apple Music to USB Drive

If you want to play Apple Music in a Car without iPhone,you can transfer Apple Music to USB flash drive for listening through USB Flash drive,just plug the USB into your Mac/Windows computer, and copy the converted Apple Music songs to USB for enjoying in your car.If you want to play M4P on Android devices like Samsung S8, Huawei Mate 10, Huawei P20, and Google Pixel 2XL, etc,you can also transfer all converted Apple Music to other non-Apple devices for enjoying without Apple Music app.

Related Article

Transfer Music from iTunes to Flash Drive

Comments

Prompt: you need to log in before you can comment.
No account yet. Please click here to register.

[2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5]

Loading...