How to Create AAC or MP3 Version in iTunes 2018

Updated Nov 23,2018 | by Cody

If you are familiar with iTunes, you should know the Create AAC version feature in iTunes that allows you to convert any audio file to AAC audio encoding scheme. Someone may have noticed the Create AAC version option is missing in the latest iTunes 12, but it is not.

In this article, I will show you how to convert any songs to another format using iTunes. Besides AAC, you can convert it to MP3, WAV, AIFF, and Apple Lossless. Actually, you can also convert video to one of these audio formats.

If you have an old version of iTunes, you can may right click to find the Create AAC version option. Those who found the Create AAC version option gone is possibly because they have set to another audio format in Preferences.

You can follow the steps below to get the Create AAC version feature back in iTunes.

Step 1. In iTunes, go to Edit > Preferences > General.

Step 2. Click on Import Settings. in the pop-up window, change the settings to Import Using AAC Encoder, which is the first option. You always change to another format like MP3 if needed. Click OK to save the settings.

Step 3. Select one or more song in iTunes that you want to convert to AAC. You can use Ctrl + click to select multiple items or Ctrl + A to select all.

Step 4. Click File > Convert > Create AAC Version.

The AAC version will be saved in the original file location. If needed, you can right click on it and select Song Info and you will find the file location path under the File tab. This is quick and convenient. With a small trick, you can also use iTunes to extract audio from video.

As you should know, AAC is an audio encoding scheme with a variety of extensions including .aac and .m4a. When you locate the converted audio file, you will the actual file extension is M4A.

If you want to convert to AAC file extension, then you can use another tool.

To convert a media file to any different format, you can use IOTransfer, a media converter tool for Windows 10/8/7. It supports many media files including MP4, FLV, MKV, WMV, MOV, AVI, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, M4A, etc.

If you have your iOS device connected to this PC, IOTransfer also allows you to one-click transfer the converted audio or video to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. You can refer to the steps below to see how it works.

Step 1. Free download and install this program on your PC.

Step 2. Open IOTransfer and click on the Video tab from the top menu. If you want to transfer music to your iPhone music library, then connect it to your PC via lightning cable.

Step 3. Click Add Files to select the file(s) that you want to convert to AAC file extension. You can select multiple files to convert if needed.

Step 4. Click Output Format to select AAC as the output file extension.

Step 5. Check the option Automatically transfer the converted into your iOS device if needed. Then click Convert Now to start to convert select files to AAC format.

In a short while, the process will be complete. Then you can open the output folder to view the AAC file. Of course, you can change the default output folder if you want. If you choose to transfer them to your iOS device, then you can also check it in your iPhone Music library.

As you can see, IOTransfer can do far more than just Convert video to AAC format. You can use it to download music from YouTube, clean iPhone space without deleting your valuable data, transfer files between iPhone and PC wirelessly, etc.

That’s how you can create AAC version in iTunes or IOTransfer. Which method do you think is better? If you have a better method for making AAC version, share it in the comments section. 

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