How to Get Beats Per Minute Information for Songs From iTunes

ITunes can display a song's BPM value in the tags.

Apple's iTunes application displays information about your songs available in each song's tags. A song's tags can contain only basic information such as the artist and song title, or more advanced information such as beats per minute values. Knowing a song's BPM value allows you to create playlists of faster or slower songs in iTunes, or to sort your library of songs by tempo. You can get the BPM information available for your songs from the Get Info dialog in iTunes and fill it in yourself if it isn't available.

Instructions

1. Select a song you want to view beats per minute information about by clicking it in iTunes.

2. Click the "File" menu in iTunes and select "Get Info."

3. Click the "Info" tab in the dialog window that appears.

4. Read the beats per minute information from the BPM box to the right of the Grouping box.

Tips & Warnings

• Set or change BPM information by typing a value into the BPM box and clicking "OK."

• You can view beats per minute information directly in your iTunes library. Click the "View" menu, select "View Options," click the "Beats Per Minute" checkbox and click "OK."

• If you have a large collection of songs without beats per minute information, you can use a third-party program to automatically detect each song's BPM and save the BPM information to iTunes. Download, install and use an application such as BPM Counter for Windows, Tangerine! for Mac OS X or beaTunes, which supports both operating systems.

References

• The New York Times; Keeping Time in iTunes; J. D. Biersdorfer; March 2008

Resources

• Abyssmedia: BPM Counter
• Potion Factory: Tangerine!
• BeaTunes: Homepage