[ronin.45]

Can I save my iTunes to a thumb drive? I want to play my iTunes in my car. My head unit has a USB port, but I can't play my iPhone through the USB cable. I thought if I could download my iTunes to a thumb I could plug that in and play them.

Will that even work?

[gemeinschaft]

Try saving your music files to your thumbdrive.

It may work, it will all depend on which filetypes your car radio will recognize.

Music that you purchase from the iTunes store may not readily play from a thumbdrive, but music that you Rip from CD will. This has everything to do with DRM (Digital Rights Management) to avoid piracy and stuff.

[Drjones]

Buy an iPod.

[Bren]

Are your itunes files in MP3 format? If you bought them from Apple or converted them to their format, I don't think they'll work - I think they have something other than a standard MP3 format. My wife has a JVC that you can plug in a thumb drive or any ipod or iphone and it works, but if yours is not ipod/iphone compatible, you'll need regular MP3's on your thumb drive.

[michael_b]

I believe some car stereos will play AAC files(Apples music format) as long as its the DRM free versions.

Apple dropped DRM a while ago but if you have older tracks they might still be DRM'd.

Most all stand alone music players will play non DRM'd AAC files.

You can't play it through the USB cable via your phone, your right, but you should have a 3.5mm jack in front. If you do, just buy a 3.5mm male to male cable and plug it into your phones headphone port and Ito your stereo.

Other wise, yes you should be able to use a thumb drive. I believe the only real issue will be if you ripped CD's to Apples Lossless format and the above mentioned DRM issue.

My cousin has done the thumb drive thing for years and it works great.

Posted from my iPhone

[OMEGA5]

Originally Posted by michael_b

I believe some car stereos will play AAC files(Apples music format) as long as its the DRM free versions.

Apple dropped DRM a while ago but if you have older tracks they might still be DRM'd.

Most all stand alone music players will play non DRM'd AAC files.

You can't play it through the USB cable via your phone, your right, but you should have a 3.5mm jack in front. If you do, just buy a 3.5mm male to male cable and plug it into your phones headphone port and Ito your stereo.

Other wise, yes you should be able to use a thumb drive. I believe the only real issue will be if you ripped CD's to Apples Lossless format and the above mentioned DRM issue.

My cousin has done the thumb drive thing for years and it works great.

Posted from my iPhone

My Ford FX4 will play iTUNE format as well as MP3.
I have a mixture of music from CD's and from my iPOD
saved on a 16 gig thumb drive that I leave plugged into
my FX4's USB port. The SYNC system works with it.
Press the Media button on the steering wheel and tell
her to "play track ? or album ?; and she finds it on the thumb
drive and plays it. I love Ford's SYNC system.
I can stick my iPOD into the MP3 port and it works the
same way.
Dano

[ronin.45]

So how do I save my iTunes to a thumb drive? I don't see any way to do it in iTunes. Would I have to re-burn all my CDs into my hard drive and then transfer them?

[ronin.45]

Originally Posted by michael_b

I believe some car stereos will play AAC files(Apples music format) as long as its the DRM free versions.

Apple dropped DRM a while ago but if you have older tracks they might still be DRM'd.

Most all stand alone music players will play non DRM'd AAC files.

You can't play it through the USB cable via your phone, your right, but you should have a 3.5mm jack in front. If you do, just buy a 3.5mm male to male cable and plug it into your phones headphone port and Ito your stereo.

Other wise, yes you should be able to use a thumb drive. I believe the only real issue will be if you ripped CD's to Apples Lossless format and the above mentioned DRM issue.

My cousin has done the thumb drive thing for years and it works great.

Posted from my iPhone

I have a 3.5 cable, but it's not compatible with my LifeProof case unless I use the adapter. If I decide to listen to my phone as I'm driving I can't exactly unscrew the plug, screw in the adapter and then plug in the cable.

[sbhaven]

Originally Posted by ronin.45

So how do I save my iTunes to a thumb drive? I don't see any way to do it in iTunes. Would I have to re-burn all my CDs into my hard drive and then transfer them?

For starters, you are NOT going to save "iTunes" to a thumb drive. You are going to convert your existing music so it can be copied/moved from your computer to a thumb drive. iTunes is a software program not a music/song file.

The trick is to convert the existing media content in iTunes to a format your Head Unit can play via changing the iTunes import encoder. The basic steps are:
In iTunes, go to Preferences General > Import Settings button
Choose import using MP3 encoder
Then right click any song you wish to convert and choose "Create MP3 Version".

This will create a "copy" in MP3 format of the song you selected on your computer. You can then move/copy that song to your USB thumb drive.

See the second post at this link for more information: Copying iTunes music to a USB drive for car audio

Also see this Apple Support document: iTunes: How to convert a song to a different file format

[Bushflyr]

You shouldn't need to convert anything. Just go to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music and drag and drop whatever files you want onto the USB drive.

If you imported/purchased your music files (not your "itunes," as sbhaven pointed out) in AAC and your stereo doesn't support that format then you need to convert.