How to Back Up Songs in iTunes

Your iTunes library can be an extensive collection of your most cherished music and other media. It’s important to back up these songs in the event of a crash or damage occurring to your hard drive. With backups, you’ll be able to restore your music safely to your computer. Here’s how to back up songs in iTunes.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• iTunes account

1. Download the latest version of iTunes and the latest updates for your iPod. The most recent version of iTunes offers the quickest and easiest way to back up your iTunes library.

2. Use the Back Up to Disc feature of iTunes 7. This allows you to copy all your media (audio, pictures, video) to recordable CDs or DVDs.

3. Click the File drop-down menu, then select the "Back Up to Disc" option.

4. Select either "Back Up Entire iTunes Library and Playlists," "Back Up Only iTunes Store Purchases" or "Only Back Up Items Added or Changed Since Last Backup."

5. Insert your media of choice (a blank writable CD or DVD) into your disc drive.

6. Click the Backup button.

7. Insert additional discs as iTunes prompts you to. It will ask you to insert another disc when it has burned as many files as will fit on the current disc.

Tips & Warnings

• To reinstall all your songs, simply insert the burned backup disc into your computer. The iTunes program will automatically ask if you want to restore your music from the disc to your library.
• Your backup discs can only be used to put music back into your library. They will not play in a standard CD or DVD player.