iTunes is a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, as well as client program of the iTunes Store. It is developed by Apple Inc. and used to play, download, buy, and organize digital multimedia on PCs running macOS or Windows systems.
Especially, iTunes is the official and popular platform for both Apple and Windows users to listen to music or songs. Yet, sometimes, you may fail to play certain types of music or movies with it. So, what file formats does iTunes support?
iTunes Music Formats
What format does iTunes use for music? What audio format is iTunes? Or, what format are iTunes songs in? In general, iTunes audio formats are listed below.
- MP3
- AAC
- AIFF
- WAV
- Audible .aa files
- M4A (purchased)
- M4P (purchased)
iTunes can convert between MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF, and Apple Lossless music format.
Video Formats for iTunes
What video format does iTunes support? According to Apple, iTunes compatible video formats include video formats that work with QuickTime and files bought or downloaded from iTunes Store. Generally, those files are of the following formats.
- MOV
- M4V
- MP4
However, there are limitations on video codecs, sample rate, and so on. If your .mov, .m4v, or .mp4 files are rejected by iTunes, it may due to an unsupported codec pack.
How to Play Unsupported Video/Audio Formats on iTunes?
Since the iTunes music formats and video formats are limited, you can’t directly play the incompatible media files with iTunes. Then, what to do?
Where there is a will, there is a way! Fortunately, you can rely on an iTunes video format converter or iTunes audio format converter to convert to iTunes format. For example, MiniTool Video Convert is a completely free video/audio converting software that can easily and quickly convert movies to iTunes format free, convert iTunes song to MP3 format, etc.
After conversion, you can freely play your favorite songs or music videos (MVs) on iTunes.
Which iTunes Music Format to Choose?
Most digital tracks imported into the iTunes database are compressed to occupy less storage space. Yet, compressing a song will decrease its sound quality. So, you have to make a tradeoff between file size and audio quality.
Considering that, the well-known suitable iTunes file format is MP3, which is shrunken to a reasonable size with a quality that is acceptable to most audiences.
However, Apple likes AAC format iTunes, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding on Macs with QuickTime 6.2 and later. It is a default compression format that Apple claims to be no worse than MP3 files that are encoded with the same or a little bit higher bitrate.
The songs you purchase from the iTunes Store are also in AAC format, whose one-minute audio requires less than 1MB of hard drive space. Also, iTunes accepted audio formats include WAV, AIFF, as well as Apple Lossless. WAV and AIFF are two uncompressed formats with exceptional sound quality but eat much disk space. As the most advanced format, Apple Lossless is equipped with the sound quality of WAV and AIFF but requires only half of the storage.
iTunes Supported Text Formats
iTunes can also be used to purchase and sync books and documents. Hardware devices that support the iBook app can take advantage of ePub files downloaded from iTunes, DRM-free ePub files from other sources, and PDF files.
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About The Author
Position: Columnist
Helen Graduated from university in 2014 and started working as a tech editor in the same year. Her articles focus on video creation, editing, and conversion. She also has a good knowledge of disk management and data backup & recovery. Through an in-depth exploration of computer technology, Helen has successfully helped thousands of users solve their annoying problems.