can you download mp3's that are not from itunes onto an ipod

[WCGreen]

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Yes, any mp3 files will go on there.

[Bossy Monkey]

2. Yes, but

it takes a little while to get them formatted Ipodistically. Brother gave me a Nano for Xmas. I'm the last person on the planet on dialup and didn't want to download or install iTunes, knowing how big it would be. I also had a ton of (bought and paid for) mp3s on the hard drive. So I tried to copy and paste them into the Nano. That didn't work too well. Or at all. Then when I did download and install iTunes, it wouldn't recognize the Nano until I dumped the mp3s. Then it formatted the Nano, and I cut and pasted again and it formatted the mp3s, too. So in short, yes. Eventually.

[Kali]

9. you are not alone

there are still a significant number of us stuck with dial-up

[freshwest]

3. Why not use iTunes? They're made for each other. It's free, don't have to have a Mac:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Just a suggestion.

[WCGreen]

10. I thought you had to buy from Itunes....

So I just download and reformat my mp3's into the program...

[freshwest]

12. It will suck them in automatically, probably. Or drag them to a playlist and upload your CDs to it.

I download mp3s and put them in folders and drag the entire folder to playlists. Or drag individual mp3 icons to whatever playlist I want.

I also download mp3s from lectures on youtube I want to hear later without playing the videos or having to be online when I'm away. I upload my favorite CDs and audiobooks I've bought to iTunes and make playlists and listen to them on the computer or my iPod. I used to put them on CDs to play in my vehicle until the car stereo broke.

There are many sources of free literary works dictated online; and as far as getting the artwork for them, as they are M4U's (?) I forget the designation that help you scroll through the songs faster.

The artwork for the albums or songs can be downloaded through iTunes, but you have to have an account. Likewise, this can be done for free with an iTunes card purchased at store, or simply a free song at Starbucks. That sets up an account linked to the email account of your choice and don't forget your password.

It is true as far as burning the playlists to discs there are restrictions BUT ONLY for those songs bought through the iTunes storefront, not your CDs or otherwise purchased or downloaded mp3s.

Firefox has add ons to download from youtube, and if the work is copyrighted, it will not work. If you don't have Firefox, you can use videodroid to get mp3s, and it will likewise not work if it's illegal.

I hope that helps. You can download iTunes at the link, for free, set up an account with a free song card or a cheap purchased iTunes card and an email, and there you go into the wonderful world of portable listening.

Good luck.

[WCGreen]

13. It took me a few minutes after the suggestions here and Mrs. WCGreen now has about 300

songs on her IPod....

[freshwest]

14. Fast, isn't it?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Good luck!

And enjoy...

[GoCubsGo]

5. Certainly.

You can put download much anything onto an iPod...MP3, MP4, WAV.... You can also pull songs off of CDs and load them on, which is a very easy process. But, you need the iTunes software to get the files onto the iPod. My gripe with iTunes is that it's a pain in the ass to get tunes off of a computer that is different from the one where you have your "library".

I miss my old MP3 player that one only needed drag and drop in Windows.

[sakabatou]

6. Almost any format of digital music will be able to go into itunes.

[Locrian]

7. almost - except flac w.o a special app

[sakabatou]

8. Yeah, that's one of them

Like I said, almost any.

[kentauros]

11. While it may seem like it's too bad that FLAC files

won't work on an ipod, those players aren't the best in the industry for sound-quality, either. So it's probably for the better that you can't get a FLAC file on it. The superior sound quality of a lossless format would be wasted

http://anythingbutipod.com/

[cascadiance]

15. One used to half to download them to an Ipod through Musicmatch before they had Itunes for the PC...

Musicmatch was bundled with the early Ipods as the PC interface to the IPOD and would download MP3's to the Ipod then. I used to work there. Of course the library Musicmatch used from Apple to download it was slower than the subsequent Itunes library was.

Haven't tried to use my Ipod much a lot in recent years, do don't know the present situation for this. I recall that early on there were some other third party utilities for doing downloads of MP3s to Ipods as well, but I think over time, most people just use Itunes to avoid problems. The main thing is that I think you need to import any "foreign" MP3 files in to Itunes so that Itunes is aware of them and all of their associated data, etc.

[Grantuspeace]

16. Seems like a huge pain in the...

butt to me. I have 2 4Gb mp3 players I bought for under $20 each. No file conversion, no problems. Am I the only one that thinks all this Apple stuff is just glitsy over priced, over hyped stuff?