How to burn a CD from iTunes

December 1, 2009 By Greg Mombert

How to burn a CD using iTunes

We go over step-by-step how to burn a CD from iTunes. Apple’s iTunes software does more than simply play your music; it also has the capability of burning any combination of your music to blank CDs. So forget about transferring music to your iPhone or iPod and instead burn a good old fashion CD.

We’re going to assume you already have iTunes installed and have added your music to the iTunes library. If you need help with importing your music then check out Apple’s tutorial. The first thing you need to do is create a new playlist that includes all the tracks you want to burn to your blank CD. To do this go to “File,” and select “New Playlist.” iTunes will create a box that says, “Untitled Playlist” and all you need to do is rename it to your liking.

Next you need to add your songs by dragging and dropping them into the new playlist. Keep in mind that CDs hold around 80 minutes of music. iTunes displays the total length of your playlist on the bottom taskbar.

Insert a blank CD-R, go to the bottom taskbar and select the “Burn Disc” button. iTunes will take a few moments to read the disc. iTunes will then start burning you selected songs to the disc and should take around 2-5 minutes depending on the number of songs you selected.

iTunes will notify you when it’s finished and your CD is now ready for use.

Showing 7 comments

Zoe at 8:43pm 11th January 2011 um it seems that i can't find the burn button.
Lisa at 6:43pm 1st January 2011 Thank you so much for posting these instructions! Awesome!!!
aaron12992 at 12:50am 26th June 2010 what if itunes wont burn the cd as a audio cd what do i do so it will play in my 97 monte carlo ? it has stock so i have to use 4x on the burn or could it be my computer doesn't burn cds?
falexak at 1:05am 24th February 2010 Quite exactly to do so when burning my playlist to CD, thanks! But how about DVD disc?
alansmithee71 at 9:05am 15th January 2010 Thanks for replying,dang...I was dragging from the music stored on my ipod.It seems that you can only drag files from the itunes library into a new playlist. Is there a way to transfer the music stored on my ipod into the itunes library? The situation seems bleak but thanks again. Cheers.
dang at 9:56pm 14th January 2010 Are you dragging from your iTunes library or from an attached iPhone/iPod?
alansmithee71 at 7:24pm 14th January 2010 I go into 'File' and select 'New Playlist' but when I drag the songs to it,I get a circle with a line through it indicating I cannot send the songs into the playlist.I think that if I have tunes in itunes library I can drag the songs into the playlist but for some reason the songs stored on my itunes cannot be placed in a new playlist therefore I cannot burn the music onto CD.
WTF?