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.
January 10, 2009 at 10:35 pm
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
May 13, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Thank you for this! I was looking and looking for how to do this! I appreciate your help!
June 25, 2009 at 1:18 am
Thank You !!!
Very straight forward and to the point without all the weeding through the garbage.
Great Job !!
June 25, 2009 at 7:44 am
I am glad this helped.
August 10, 2009 at 1:48 am
Excellent tips, thanks a ton!
October 12, 2009 at 1:09 pm
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!
October 24, 2009 at 5:28 pm
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)
October 24, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Thanks Iain. That’s helpful. I just tried it out and it works great.
November 23, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Thank so much Doug. This situation with my audiobooks was driving me crazy. Great help. I appreciate your posting.
December 6, 2009 at 6:50 am
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.
December 25, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thanks so much for such clear instructions! It was driving me crazy having my Italian language course placed in the Music category
January 6, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Many Thanks Doug!
February 23, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Thanks Doug! This was a great help and so plainly written.
March 15, 2010 at 10:55 am
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.
March 16, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Doug, Dude – you rock for these instructions!! Thanks a million!
March 24, 2010 at 8:05 am
Hi Doug,
Just wanted to say THANKS! Your tips were so clearly marked and extremely helpful!!
April 28, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Thank you so much!
May 7, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Thanks so very much! That was driving me crazy. Much appreciated!
August 17, 2010 at 4:44 pm
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!
April 4, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Exactly what I was searching for – thanks.
September 5, 2011 at 5:05 am
tHANKS SO MUCH! GREAT HELP!!
March 24, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Great instructions. Thanks!
July 11, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Thanks a million! Appreciate it!! (:
October 26, 2013 at 4:22 pm
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!