Using an SD card for iTunes music

gmacecsko · December 29, 2016

Has anyone copied their iTunes library to an SD card ? I have a 64 GB SD card with a UBS adapter. I am thinking about copying our iTunes to the card and using one of the USB port in the console. Just not sure if it will work.

pgamboa · December 29, 2016

iTunes has their music formatted as .m4a (if you bought them from iTunes). .m4a is the DRM (Digital Rights Management) protocol for copyright. I remember back in the day, having to format my music to .mp3 to be recognized on players. If I recall, iTunes has a option to re-encode them to .mp3. That's if our radios don't recognize the .m4a format.

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Edited December 29, 2016 by pgamboa

ewiski · December 29, 2016

you can export them as mp3. I though about doing this once but decided it was to much of a hassle if i added songs since i have 2 cars.

Edited December 29, 2016 by ericw

Havvkeye · December 29, 2016

From the Manual (edit: Page 196 http://www.gmc.com/content/dam/GMC/global/master/nscwebsite/en/home/Vehicles/Current_Vehicles/2017_Sierra_1500/Model_Overview/02_PDF/2017-Sierra-Owners-Manual_v2.pdf)

Music files with .mp3, .wma,

.ogg, and .wav file name

extensions can be played.

. MP3 files that can be played: Bit

rate: 8 kbps to 320 kbps.

Sampling frequency: 48 kHz,

44.1 kHz, 32 kHz, 24 kHz, 22.05

kHz, and 16 kHz.

. Files with a bit rate above

128 kbps will result in higher

quality sound.

. ID3 Tag information for MP3

files, such as the album name

and the artist, can be played.

. To display album title, track title,

and artist information, the file

should be compatible with the

ID3 Tag V1 and V2 formats.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Havvkeye

Trucko20 · December 29, 2016

Not exactly on topic, but does anyone know how to make the album art appear when playing from an SD card? Virtually all my music is burned from CDs, and it seems completely random whether or not the artwork shows up.

Gilisfloyd · December 30, 2016

I've got my library on a thumb drive and it works perfectly..

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x219c · December 30, 2016

Not exactly on topic, but does anyone know how to make the album art appear when playing from an SD card? Virtually all my music is burned from CDs, and it seems completely random whether or not the artwork shows up.

You have to have your artwork embedded in the MP3 file. I know iTunes allows you to do this... As well as many others, but I don't have any recommendations, unfortunately. I'm a mac/iPhone guy, so I don't usually need to go far for my music to show up pretty.

I would just google "embed album art MP3". That should get you some good ideas.

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Pearl2017 · December 30, 2016

i bought a program called dbpoweramp. its a suite of tools to do all you need easily with batch modes for artwork, tags and conversion. my main collection is in flac format but it was easy to export to the max mp3 resolution onto a 256gb thumb drive. If you have itunes files with drm there is program called handbrake and some others that can convert them, just google it.

Havvkeye · December 30, 2016

Not exactly on topic, but does anyone know how to make the album art appear when playing from an SD card? Virtually all my music is burned from CDs, and it seems completely random whether or not the artwork shows up.

Read my post right above yours. It answers your question.

pgamboa · December 30, 2016

Not exactly on topic, but does anyone know how to make the album art appear when playing from an SD card? Virtually all my music is burned from CDs, and it seems completely random whether or not the artwork shows up.

If you rip your CDs, you will not have ID3 Tags associated with it. Look up ID3 Tagging and tag your music. I use a program called Music Brainz Picard.

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deweyg63 · December 31, 2016

Just drag your songs from the iTunes window to the SD card window. Did it last week. Put songs off an old computer on a USB flash drive too. Both are in their slots in the console and work fine

Vetteran · December 31, 2016

I too just copied most of my iTunes library to a 32GB thumb drive. I first created folders on the thumb drive named something similar to the playlist names then highlighted all tunes under the playlist and drug/dropped them to the corresponding folder. You can then browse the folders and select which one you want to play. If the artwork is setup in iTunes then it will copy over and shows on the display. Additionally I had to go with a 32GB drive, my truck wouldn't read the 64 gig drive I tried.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Vetteran

Bulldog1500 · October 28, 2020

I am new to this. I am not sure which type of 32 sd card to buy. I have lots of songs in my iTunes library on my computer, and it has a spot for sd card so transferring should be pretty easy I think.

Pearl2017 · October 29, 2020

My 128 and 256gb drives are Sandisk cruzer i think. Any one should work as long as it is good quality. If you have the PC for it get USB 3 or 2 they copy much faster.

I will reiterate dbpoweramp will rip a cd into any format and bitrate and also add the id3 tags and artwork in one easy shot. the resulting rip is also compared to online checksum database for a perfect copy. If not it will scrub read the disk till it is. If you have a lot of music this is a killer management tool for a collection.

LDM · October 29, 2020

I just got my MP3 collection put on a USB drive and in my truck a couple weeks ago. Not sure about anyone else but my truck would not recognize any USB 3.0 or 3.1 drive, only USB 2.0. Tried multiple different formats and drives, made no difference. As my truck is an 18, I don't have the SD card option. Ended up buying a 64GB USB 2.0 drive off Ebay to fit all my music as none of my old 2.0 drives had enough space. So if you run into issues with the USB drives, try the older 2.0. No idea why this should matter on these trucks but it did on mine.

Edited October 29, 2020 by LDM