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Get cover art in iTunes

Updating the cover art in iTunes is a great way to improve your Mac music experience. In this feature we look at how to update the album artwork in OS X iTunes.
By Lucy Hattersley
Macworld JAN 1, 2015 8:00 am PST

Apple’s iTunes remains one of the main ways we access music on our Mac. It’s great for playing all this music tracks we’ve collected over the years.

If you buy music from iTunes, then it comes complete with album art (along with accurate track listing information). However, if you import albums from CDs then it doesn’t always come with album art.

The upshot of this is that some of your music library has great looking album art, and some of it doesn’t. iTunes has become increasingly visual as time goes on, using Album art as an integral part of the display as you scan for and play music.

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How to get album art in iTunes

Get album artwork in iTunes

So getting album art in iTunes is a good idea. Tidying up your music library makes iTunes look, and feel, better to use. Here is how to get missing album art in iTunes:

  1. Make sure you are signed in to the iTunes Store. Open iTunes and click Store > Sign In. Enter your Apple ID and Password if you’re not signed in.
  2. Click the Music tab in iTunes, and My Music.
  3. Control + Click an album with missing artwork and choose Get Album Artwork from the contextual menu.

It’s a good idea to check the box Do Not Ask Me Again in the Are You Sure You Want To Get Album artwork (so you don’t have to do so again). Click Get Album Artwork.

iTunes will compare the album to the iTunes Store database, and if it finds a match you will get the album artwork from the store on the album.

How to manually add album art to iTunes

Add album artwork to iTunes

If you choose Get Album Artwork and get an error message that the artwork “Cloud Not Be Found” then it is possible to manually add artwork to iTunes. Here is how to manually add album artwork to iTunes:

  1. Find the song in iTunes with missing artwork. Make a note of the name of the song (or album).
  2. Open Safari and go to Google Image Search (images.google.com). Enter the name of the song or album and locate the artwork. Drag it to your Desktop.
  3. Highlight the song in iTunes and press Command + I (or Control + Click the track and choose Get Info).
  4. Click the Artwork tab.
  5. Click Get Artwork.
  6. Use the Finder window to locate the artwork file and click Open.
  7. Click OK.

The artwork file will now be attached to the song in iTunes. You can delete the file from your computer.

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