I have a bunch of audiobooks that I either imported from CD or downloaded from eMusic. One problem. These audiobooks don’t show up in the audiobooks section of iTunes. Why is that important? When I sync to the iPhone, my audiobooks show up like music files and I can’t bookmark my place. Big problem.
I skip around between different books (before finishing) and don’t like to lose my place. It was such a challenge that I had been keeping note everytime I paused an audiobook with the last chapter I was listening to. There’s got to be a better way! If I could get the books into the audiobooks section of iTunes, they would automatically bookmark the last place I stopped.
Finally, I did some searching in the iTunes customer forums and found two helpful things for myself and other audiobook listeners. Here are the steps I followed to move the imported audiobooks from the music section to the audiobook section on iTunes.
1. Highlight all the files for a selected book and right click (or control-click for us Mac users). Then select “Get Info.”
2. First, changed the generic “audiobook” genre to something more specific. In this case, I chose “novel.”
3. Then jump over to the “Options” tab and change file from “Music” to “Audiobook.” I also changed to yes the following: “remember position,” “skip when shuffling,” and “gapless album.”
4. Once you click “OK,” it takes a moment for iTunes to process your files. Now they show up in “Audiobooks” instead of “Music.”
5. In order to keep from syncing all audiobooks when I sync my iPhone, I select view by list. Highlight the books I don’t want to sync, right click (control click for Mac), and choose “Uncheck selections.”
6. Finally, I choose “Sync only checked songs and videos” under the iPhone sync screen, and I am good to go.
Hi, Doug:
I’ve been reading a GREAT introduction. Berman’s ‘Law and Revolution’.
He was a student of ERH, and applied much of it to the history of the law in the West.
We’re in a big crisis.
(c) by Harvard, where he was a professor.
Love in King Jesus,
Chuck
Thank you for this! I was looking and looking for how to do this! I appreciate your help!
Thank You !!!
Very straight forward and to the point without all the weeding through the garbage.
Great Job !!
I am glad this helped.
Excellent tips, thanks a ton!
Stumbled on this site after a frustration search for a solution to this problem and what a simple and effective solution you provided, many many thanks!
Thanks very much for the tips, I subsequently found that you don’t need to go and select all of the tracks, you can do it at the album level (even selecting multiple albums)
Thanks Iain. That’s helpful. I just tried it out and it works great.
Thank so much Doug. This situation with my audiobooks was driving me crazy. Great help. I appreciate your posting.
Doug, Thanks for this I had been reading on the best way to do this as it kept syncing all the book ;-(, however your solution seems to be the best alternative at it keeps everything in one place and once you have made the changes then it is only a matter of a few ticks for the next book. Thanks again.
Thanks so much for such clear instructions! It was driving me crazy having my Italian language course placed in the Music category
Many Thanks Doug!
Thanks Doug! This was a great help and so plainly written.
Hi, I love the help on audiobooks…I drive long distances for work and it is an awesome way to keep the story moving as I am a slow reader and pretty beat at night when I sit down to read the physical book…I only last a few pages before nodding. So thanks for the help. I also listen to books on my iphone while hiking with my dogs…I can go miles before I know it!
Anyway today’s question is about sharing books with other book lovers. Is it possible to somehow email books to friends and family? Most of the books I download from the library for free, so there is no problem with someone losing money on add’l sales.
Doug, Dude – you rock for these instructions!! Thanks a million!
Hi Doug,
Just wanted to say THANKS! Your tips were so clearly marked and extremely helpful!!
Thank you so much!
Thanks so very much! That was driving me crazy. Much appreciated!
I was having trouble even getting my audiobooks onto my iphone. I took just your first step and changed them from “audiobook”‘s to “music” and added them into a seperate playlist and they are now on my iphone. sure I cant keep track of where I am but I dont need to.
thanks!
Exactly what I was searching for – thanks.
tHANKS SO MUCH! GREAT HELP!!
Great instructions. Thanks!
Thanks a million! Appreciate it!! (:
and another grateful stumbler in the world of audiobooks likes to thank you for shortening my time of try and error: well done, great dtuff and thank you for helping the rest of us!