How to Upload Music to the Amazon MP3 Cloud Player

If you haven't used Amazon Cloud Player before, it's an online service where you can upload music and stream it via your internet browser. To get you started, Amazon gives you free cloud space for up to 250 songs if uploaded. If you purchase digital music via the Amazon MP3 Store, this also appears in your music locker space but doesn't count toward this limit.

Whether you want to upload songs you have ripped from your audio CDs or purchased from other digital music services, these steps show how to get your collection into the Amazon Cloud Player. All you need is an Amazon account. Once your songs are in the cloud, you can listen to them (via streaming) using a web browser. You can also stream to iPhone, Kindle Fire, and Android devices.

How to Install Amazon Music

Before you can upload your music (must be DRM-free), you first need to download and install the Amazon Music Importer application. This is currently available for the PC (Windows 7, Vista, and XP) and Mac (OS X 10.6+, Intel CPU, AIR version 3.3.x). Follow these steps to download and install Amazon Music Importer:

1. Log in to Amazon Music.

2. Click your name from the left pane, and then click Download Desktop app.

   Another option for downloading Amazon Music is to click the link from the Amazon Music App page.

3. Open AmazonMusicInstaller to install the program. The entire installation process is automated, so you'll know it's finished when Amazon Music opens.

4. Sign in to your Amazon account.

Importing Songs Using Amazon Music Importer

After you've installed the Amazon Music Importer and logged in to your Amazon account, you can start uploading music to your Amazon Music account. The Amazon Music Importer should run automatically.

1. Click Start Scan or Browse Manually. The first option is the easiest to use and scans your computer for iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries. For this tutorial, we assume that you have chosen the Start Scan option.

2. When the scanning phase is complete, either click the Import All button or the Edit Selections option. Use this last option to select specific songs and albums. Again, for this tutorial, we assume that you want to import all your songs into the Amazon Cloud Player.

3. During the scanning, songs that can be matched with Amazon's online library automatically appear in your music locker space without the need to upload them. Compatible audio formats for song matching are MP3, AAC (.M4a), ALAC, WAV, OGG, FLAC, MPG, and AIFF. Matched songs are also upgraded to high-quality 256 Kbps MP3s. However, for songs that can't be matched, you must wait for them to be uploaded from your computer.

4. When the importing process is complete, close the Amazon Music Importer software and switch to your internet browser. To see the updated contents of your music locker, you may have to refresh your browser's screen; pressing F5 on your keyboard is the quickest option.

You can now stream your music anywhere by logging into your Amazon Cloud Player account and using an internet browser.

If you want to upload more music in the future, log in to your Amazon Cloud Player (using your Amazon username and password) and click the Import Your Music button to launch the software application you installed earlier.