Where does iTunes save imported cover art?

March 31, 2006 6:53 AM

Where does iTunes for Windows copy the cover art that you drag in? Is there a better way to organize those images?
posted by linklog to computers & internet (6 comments total)

The image is added to the music file itself as an ID3 tag.
posted by cillit bang at 6:58 AM on March 31, 2006

So, if I drag a huge jpeg into an album of 10 songs that graphic is uncompressed and plopped into each song?

Bye bye disk space on the pc AND ipod!
posted by linklog at 7:07 AM on March 31, 2006

You're jumping to conclusions if you think that the image is uncompressed when it's embedded in the file. When I went on a cover-art binge when iTunes 4 came out, the file sizes didn't grow that much -- they grew as though I added a 44-KB JPEG to them, not a 600-KB BMP.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:17 AM on March 31, 2006

Saved in each song file, and then there's some kinda database or other saved on the iPod itself. If you turn off the iPod option to show album art, you can potentially reclaim a substantial amount of space even though the songs themselves are unaltered. And if you turn the option back on, iTunes and your iPod will spend a while 'optimising album art' (or something similar). In fact, if you find that your iPod stops displaying album art correctly, those are the two steps to restore the art database.
posted by kimota at 7:24 AM on March 31, 2006

Yeah, I haven't looked at any file size numbers but I just right click copied and pasted a cover from itunes that I imported yesterday and it pasted into photoshop as the same (large) size. I haven't looked at the dpi or compression but the physical dimensions are the same and it looks pretty crisp.

I guess it is worth it. I miss my cover art.
posted by linklog at 7:25 AM on March 31, 2006

Some media manager programs other than iTunes will let you select whether you want to put the album art into the directory, embed it in the files, either, both, or neither. You can also specify individual embedding and copying preferences for each device sync profile. Needless to say, this is useful when you have some devices with limited storage space - why would you want to copy over all that art?
posted by meehawl at 7:44 AM on March 31, 2006