Getting album artwork

Hello
I'm a new mac user with a Macbook Air. I recently discovered that os X does not play .wma files (bummer), and unfortunately, almost half of my discography is in .wma, because, as you know, the Air does not have a CDROM, so I had to burn everything on my Windows machine. Long story short, I'm unable at the moment or in the coming future to re-rip the CD's in mp3 format, and hence unable to upload almost half of my music to iTunes, so I'm using VLC by dragging mp3/wma files directly from Finder.

What I wanted to know, is how can I add album artwork to Finder files and folders? Personally, I find the light blue music folder icons depressing (compared to the vivid album artwork music folders on a Windows), as well as the grey on black music file icons. However, some (approx 5% of the files) have album artwork on them, so I assume it is possible to change the icons somehow. How can I change my music folders' and files' icons in finder to represent relative album artwork?

Many thanks

(as I already mentioned, I will be unable to re-rip the CDs in the near future, so iTUnes is not an option)

oh come on, 150 people read this and don't know how to help me

post

Spinatai said:

oh come on, 150 people read this and don't know how to help me

Click to expand...

As someone once told me - be patient!

Spinatai said:

oh come on, 150 people read this and don't know how to help me

Click to expand...

Most of those "people" are actually Google search engine spiders. So of course they don't know how to help you. Luckily, I'm not one and I do know how to help you.

Spinatai said:

Hello
I'm a new mac user with a Macbook Air. I recently discovered that os X does not play .wma files (bummer), and unfortunately, almost half of my discography is in .wma, because, as you know, the Air does not have a CDROM, so I had to burn everything on my Windows machine.

Click to expand...

So? Are you telling me your Windows machine can't burn songs to standard formats like MP3? I think you'll find that you're wrong on this.

So, the real solution is to re-rip the CDs in AAC or MP3 (yes I know you can't right now, read on). There are some third-party programs that can convert WMA to those formats if you're feeling lazy (I use MediaHuman Audio Converter for this sort of thing) but that's re-compressing a compressed file so the sound quality is not QUITE as good as before. Better to re-rip if possible IMO.

What I wanted to know, is how can I add album artwork to Finder files and folders?

Click to expand...

I'm not clear on why you think you need to do this. Why do you need to see where the files and folders are? The artwork is prominently and beautifully displayed in iTunes. Let iTunes handle the library and you just enjoy the music and artwork there.

For getting artwork onto songs in iTunes, there are a large number of options. The best free one I've found so far is Album Artwork Assistant. You can of course add art manually and there are a few free scripts that can help you as well.

Or you could use Microsofts codecs...
Windows Media Components for QuickTime - by Flip4Mac

Chas_m, thanks for the reply

I am already aware that iTunes can do that - but as I tried to explicitly state in the first post several times, I cannot get approx half my music onto iTunes due to personal reasons (not being lazy).

"I'm not clear on why you think you need to do this." - Because I'm launching my music from Finder (Finder --> VLC) Therefore, I at least need the artwork to be displayed in Finder, on the music files and folders, because truth be told, Finder looks bloody awful compared to explorer in Windows.

Marjamrob, the codecs only allow to play wma files in quicktime, but it doesn't enable wma files to be added to iTunes. I can play .wma files just fine in VLC, so that's not a problem.

What I don't bloody understand is why even exclude .wma support from iTunes?? It's not rocket science. /endrant

Sounds like you need to return to your Windows machine bc you don't like iTunes, Finder and ...........

Being a new switcher a little research into what the OS X can and can't do would of been beneficial in this instant i think.

Cheers

Try Smart Converter (free APP on the Mac APP Store). It will convert WMA files. I got it for video conversion.

Anyway, if you like the result you can upgrade to Smart Converter Pro for $9.99 and it will do batch conversions.

EDIT: I was just looking and they also make Music Converter Pro ($4.99) that may be a better choice for your situation.

Spinatai said:

"I'm not clear on why you think you need to do this." - Because I'm launching my music from Finder (Finder --> VLC)

Click to expand...

This "minor detail" sure would have been useful if you'd included it in your first post. As I mentioned in my post Razormac also mentioned, you can use one of at least the three converters we mentioned to convert the WMA files to something standard and then "upload" them to iTunes (not sure what you mean by upload there). iTunes has a built-in facility to add the artwork to any music files in its library if it can find a match on the iTunes Music Store (you do NOT need to have bought the song from there), so that should take care of 90 percent of the files right there. The rest should be easily obtainable using the Album Artwork program I mentioned.

What I don't bloody understand is why even exclude .wma support from iTunes?? It's not rocket science. /endrant

Click to expand...

a. Because it's not a standard format -- it's limited to PCs and a handful of licensed devices, so (to be blunt) only fools who have no plans to ever move their music onto any other sort of device should be using it.

b. Because Apple doesn't feel like paying Microsoft a license fee for their POS codec that sounds terrible anyway.

I hope that's a sufficiently clear explanation. I don't speak for Apple but that's my guess on the matter.

Side note: English isn't my first language, so apologies if something isn't made clear from the beginning.
Thanks, guys... looks like I will have to convert the files to iTunes-compatible formats...
Chas_m, I did mention that detail in the first post: "I'm using VLC by dragging mp3/wma files directly from Finder."

Final few questions: do you know any free format converters that would convert batches of files? Converting each file on its own is a long process, I can't see myself sitting in front of the Mac for 40-something hours, converting one song at a time :/

And finally, I found that I already have all the artwork on my machine: View image: Screen Shot 2012 06 03 at 14 47 37
If I click on any of the pictures, and "Open Enclosing Folder", the music folder with the relevant album opens up, but the picture is not "physically" there, only the music files. So I'm guessing the folder is already associated with the artwork in some way - is there any way to change the folder icons to the relevant artwork?

May be some free batch converters out there if you search, but IMO $4.99 USD is almost free and well worth it if it does the job.

I'd try the free version first (actually what I did).

So I eventually ended up getting Music Converter Pro (3-4 GBP), pretty handy little tool. Can choose to convert straight to iTunes (the app converts and adds the files to iTunes automatically), and it is pretty quick, too. Takes 1-3 minutes to convert an album.

Glad things worked out well for you.