transfer music via USB drive to iPad; How does Music get them?

[Padcatt]

within music, there’s nothing that “reaches out” to the iPad..it wants to grab your iTunes store-bought music, it looks like.

did apple kill the ability to transfer music to the iPad via usb thumbdrive?

Thank you for information.

 

[LannyC]

All of the music on my iPad was ripped from CDs to iTunes on my Mac, then synched to the iPad's Music app. Nothing bought from Apple, no USB involved, though music on a thumb drive could be ripped to iTunes as easily as from a CD. Since all my music is from albums, I generally had to edit the metadata to make it appear correctly, as iTunes is not very smart. One reason I do it this way: right now I'm streaming a CD from my iMac to my hifi via Apple TV, and iTunes works well enough using the Remote app on the iPad; thus, the music was already in iTunes, just a short step from synching with the tablet,

 

[twerppoet]

While iTunes on the Mac is pretty friendly to importing music files, Music on iOS has never offered a direct way to do this. It’s always worked through iTunes on the Mac (or PC); either by syncing the iTunes music library directly, or by using Sync Library on both the computer and on the iPad. I’m not sure whether a subscription to Apple Music is necessary for the second method.

Other’s probably know more about this than I do. There are at least one or two members that manage their own music libraries without an Apple Music subscription.

With the advent of the Files app, there should be third party player apps that let you copy music from a thumb drive and play it; but I haven’t looked around for one recently.

The only one I have at the moment is nPlayer, and while it will let you play from a lot of cloud sources and it’s own folders, it doesn’t work with the Files app.

 

[giradman]

within music, there’s nothing that “reaches out” to the iPad..it wants to grab your iTunes store-bought music, it looks like.

did apple kill the ability to transfer music to the iPad via usb thumbdrive?

As with the others, most of the music on my iPads over the years has been transferred from the iTunes app - usually uploaded to my MBPro, imported into the music app, made a playlist, then dragged to my cabled iPad. Also for a number of years, I've used several; 3rd party 'file transfer/backup' apps, including iMazing most often - so, will demonstrate the steps w/ that app (there are other similar apps).

There are 4 images below; in the first, my iPad Pro is cabled to my MBPro and the app is opened w/ 'music' selected - note the many options at the right bottom; I'll be using 'Import from folder'. In the second pic, I've plugged in an external HDD w/ many folders of music (MPx codecs) and decided to select two ladies from the folder w/ an arrow, i.e. Barbara Streisand & Amanda McBroom. In the third image, the 'albums' are now in the music app on the iPadPro - NOTE w/o cover art (and I cannot find a way to add it to an 'album' there? Probably need to alter the metadata before the transfer). In the last pic, I've made a playlist on the iPad of the two singers AND can add a cover art image.

SO, just one likely of several ways to add music to your iPad w/o using iTunes (or Finder now). Dave
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[Aerofly]

Nice explanation Dave. I’m also using iMazing, but with my Windows laptop.
I use a program called ‘MP3Tag’ on my laptop, and I’m pretty sure it’s available for the Mac as well, which allows me to edit all of the Metadata and cover art before I transfer it.

 

[giradman]

Nice explanation Dave. I’m also using iMazing, but with my Windows laptop.
I use a program called ‘MP3Tag’ on my laptop, and I’m pretty sure it’s available for the Mac as well, which allows me to edit all of the Metadata and cover art before I transfer it.

Thanks Aerofly - out of curiosity I went to the Mac App store and found dozens of 'music tag apps', some free or nominally priced and one at nearly $30! Not sure which one you are using so entered the title above and was sent to a German website - then looked at their macOS app which required WINE to run but apparently does not work w/ Catalina, which is on all of my Macs; now some of the others in the app store may be options but I'm not doing much CD ripping anymore; have done enough over the years and have numerous streaming choices these days in the house and 'on the road' (if we ever get on the road again!). Dave

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[Aerofly]

Dave, sorry to hear about the non compatibility with Catalina. Let’s hope, as he say’s, that he can get a native version working for MacOS as it really is a useful program.
Steve