OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Using iTunes as Your Music Library

iTunes is your Mac's music hub, the application that you use to manage and play your music. You'll spend lots of time in iTunes, which works best if you also have an Internet connection so you can buy music and get album covers that display in your iTunes music library.

Setting music preferences

The first thing to do on a new Mac is set up iTunes' music preferences. (If you're upgrading your OS X to Mountain Lion, your previous iTunes settings are retained.)

Import settings

Start by choosing iTunes⇒Preferences or pressing +, (comma) and then going to the General pane, shown in Figure 15.1. Here you tell iTunes how to import music files from your music CDs.

Use the When You Insert a CD pop-up menu to control iTunes' behavior when you insert a music CD into your Mac. The options are Show CD, Begin Playing, Ask to Import CD (the default), Import CD, and Import CD and Eject. Show CD simply displays the CD in the left pane of iTunes but does nothing with it. Begin Playing plays the CD automatically, which can be handy if you want to listen to a friend's CD without making an illegal copy.

Tip

If you're loading your music collection into your Mac, choose the Import CD and Eject option from the When You Insert a CD pop-up menu to make the import process simple and fast: As you insert a CD, iTunes automatically imports the songs and then ejects the CD when ...