Let the beat drop(box)!

September 22, 2012 7:45 AM

Making iTunes and Dropbox play nice together; can it be done?

A friend is moving far away and there will be a dance party held in her honor. All the attendees are being asked to share a dance mix in Dropbox. So far, so good.

The problem is: I cannot, for the life of me, make iTunes do what I want it to do. I do not want to put my entire music library into Dropbox. I have a playlist of 10 songs and I just want to put that into the shared folder in Dropbox. I have googled, I have iTunes-forumed, I have had my 15-year-old son try, and nothing has produced success.

I thought, until now, that I was fairly comfortable with technology and the web. Now I fear that I've become "that person" who can't figure out something really simple. Please hope me, AskMeFi.

(and please try to explain your solution in terms that a muddle-headed person - as I have become - can understand)

posted by cooker girl to computers & internet (7 answers total)

I have a playlist of 10 songs and I just want to put that into the shared folder in Dropbox.

The easiest thing for a muddle-headed person to do (I say that as fellow muddle) is to rip an MP3 CD of those ten songs, then copy the songs off the CD into the shared Drop box folder. There are other ways, which don't involve a CD, but this is the simplest I can think of.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:02 AM on September 22, 2012

you can also click on each song individually, right-click on it and select "show in finder".. then duplicate that file, and drag the duplicate into your dropbox. it's fiddly b/c you'll have to do it ten times, but it will work.
posted by modernnomad at 8:10 AM on September 22, 2012

"Show in Finder" is also available from the File menu if you don't have a right-click.
posted by fragmede at 8:13 AM on September 22, 2012

I think you're overthinking this. Isn't the easiest way to just drag the songs from the list in iTunes right into an open window of the Dropbox folder?? The cursor will turn into a little "+" showing you that it will copy the song rather than move it.
posted by bcwinters at 8:22 AM on September 22, 2012

Isn't the easiest way to just drag the songs from the list in iTunes right into an open window of the Dropbox folder??

That does work, but if the the song in question was bought by the OP, then I think her friend will need her iTunes username and password to play the song. If not, it should be ok.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on September 22, 2012

[I]f the the song in question was bought by the OP, then I think her friend will need her iTunes username and password to play the song.

Yup, although this is only the case for music purchased in iTunes before 2009 that was never upgraded in the iTunes-Plus-for-30-cents deal.
posted by bcwinters at 8:49 AM on September 22, 2012

Oh my god. It finally worked. I was trying to drag-and-drop the entire playlist and/or folder and iTunes wasn't having any of it. When I did individual songs, success!

Thank you so much for your help, all of you, and for being so patient with me!
posted by cooker girl at 11:55 AM on September 22, 2012