Get picky iTunes Store artwork

Dec 06, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Rockman057

This hint is for people that like having iTunes Store artwork for their music. It's for times when you know that the iTunes Store has the album artwork, but it just won't download no matter how much you change the metadata. As far as I know this only works if the file is in an mp4 container with one of Apple's extensions.

First, you need some tool to change the content ID of the file. I use subler. It's free and open source, and has both GUI and command line versions available.

Go and find the track in the iTunes store that has the artwork you want. Click on the arrow next to the buy button and copy the link.

Now paste the link somewhere and look at the end. There should be a part that says, for example, i=123456789. This is the contentID and you want to copy it. Just the number, not the i= part.

Now find your music file in the Finder. Open it up in subler and click the drop down arrow at the bottom left. There is a field you need to add called contentID. Add it and then paste in the number from the iTunes URL.

Then save the file and go back to iTunes. You might have to get info on the file to get iTunes to reopen the file.

Now you can right click and select 'Get Album Artwork' in the menu. It should then download the exact artwork that you wanted. It worked for all the tracks I tried it with.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. It can be a little hit or miss, I found. You can't use subler with an mp3 file, so make sure you have m4a.]

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