How to Add Folders of Music to iTunes

by Sam Costello
Sam Costello has been writing about tech since 2000. His writing has appeared in publications such as CNN.com, PC World, InfoWord, and many others.
Updated December 18, 2018

When you want to add songs to iTunes, you don't have to add them one at a time. Instead, you can put them into folders and add the whole folder. When you do that, iTunes automatically adds all the songs in the folder to your library and categorizes them in the right place (assuming they have the correct ID3 tags, that is). Here's how you do it. 

You may have gotten to this article looking for a way to organize your iTunes music library into folders to make it easier to browse. Unfortunately, that's not possible. You can store your music files in various folders on your hard drive, but iTunes won't categorize them that way or let you browse your music by folder. Your options for categorizing in iTunes are driven by ID3 tags such as genre and artist.

01
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Put the Songs to Add to iTunes Into a Folder

add folders to itunes, step 1

To bulk-import music into your iTunes library, you need to begin by creating a new folder on your desktop (the way you do this will depend on what operating system you have, and which version. Since there are so many possible combinations, I'll assume you know how to do this).

With the folder created, drag the songs you want to add to iTunes into that folder. These are likely to be songs downloaded from the Internet or copied from an MP3 CD or a thumb drive. Wherever they came from, just make sure they end up in the folder if you want them to get into iTunes.

02
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Add The Folder of Songs to iTunes by Drag and Drop

add folders to itunes, step 2

Next, you add the folder to iTunes. There are two ways to do this: by dragging and dropping the folder, or by importing using a menu.

To drag and drop:

  1. Begin by finding the folder on your desktop
  2. Then, make sure iTunes is showing your music library.
  3. Drag the file into your iTunes window and a blue outline should appear around your music library.
  4. Drop it there and the music in the folder will be added to iTunes.
03
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Add The Folder of Songs to iTunes by Import

add folders to itunes, step 3

If you'd rather import the folder, follow these steps:

  1. In iTunes, click on the File menu.
  2. Click on Add to Library (on a Mac) or Add Folder to Library (on Windows). 
  3. A window will pop up asking you to select the folder you want to add. Navigate through your computer to find the folder you created on your desktop.
  4. Click on the folder.
  5. Depending on your version of iTunes and your operating system, the button to select the folder may be called Open or Choose (or something very similar). Clicking the button to add the folder to your library.
  6. Confirm that all is well by checking your iTunes library for those songs and you should find them categorized in the proper places.