Converting itunes protected aac files

bgenew1

Mouseketeer
Joined
May 26, 2008
I have approx 400 songs that are protected aac files in itunes. From what I have found I can either burn all these songs to cd's and then burn them back to itunes (costly for cd's and time) or pay itunes $24.99 to match the songs which then releases them from protected status.

Does anyone have any experience doing this?
 
I've done the burn them to a CD and then rip the CD using Microsoft Media Player. It worked fine for me.
 
I'm afraid I don't have any answers, but I was curious, is the $24.99 a flat fee or volume based?

I have approx 400 songs that are protected aac files in itunes. From what I have found I can either burn all these songs to cd's and then burn them back to itunes (costly for cd's and time) or pay itunes $24.99 to match the songs which then releases them from protected status.

Does anyone have any experience doing this?
 
aac is a format not protection. You are thinking of DRM which does not exist for music anymore. You can convert aac to MP3 right in iTunes.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204310
Honestly though that's going to degrade the quality. Did you buy these from iTunes? If yes, just delete them and re download them from your account. If they are actually still DRM protected, you would do the same, delete and re download.

eta: the $24.99 is for Apple Match. It gives you the ability to re download your music at a higher quality, not just ones you've bought from iTunes but anything you've ripped yourself. For 400 songs it's not worth it IMO. Thousands, yes.
 


Some of the songs may have been bought thru iTunes, others I believe were burned from CDs. I didn't know about this until I was trying to copy some of my music to a flash drive to listen to in the car. That is when I realized certain songs have Protected ACC audio file listed as Kind.
 
Some of the songs may have been bought thru iTunes, others I believe were burned from CDs. I didn't know about this until I was trying to copy some of my music to a flash drive to listen to in the car. That is when I realized certain songs have Protected ACC audio file listed as Kind.
It says protected? The ones you ripped wouldn't/shouldn't say that. If you have songs that say protected on them you most likely bought them from iTunes. That was removed quite some time ago though so your files must be older. You will probably have to separate those out, double check your account to make sure they are there with a little cloud/download symbol then delete them and re download.

ACC is just a format, it depends on your stereo but they should play.
 
Thanks for your help. I am home now and on itunes and a lot of the files do not have the cloud symbol. When I check the info tab, these were bought under our old email/apple id. Would that prevent me from getting them from the cloud?
 


Thanks for your help. I am home now and on itunes and a lot of the files do not have the cloud symbol. When I check the info tab, these were bought under our old email/apple id. Would that prevent me from getting them from the cloud?
If you're using a different ID they wouldn't be there. When you create an Apple ID it's still yours even if you switch to a new one so you could try logging in with the old one and download from there. Make sure you do not have any of your Apple devices plugged in, you can only use one ID at a time, you don't want to accidentally wipe your device. Log into iTunes, log out of your current account then log in with the old one. Download the songs, right click to see where iTunes put them on your computer, make a note of that. Make sure to log out of iTunes, shut it down and then go to where it put them. From there you should be able to copy them to your flash drive. You can also copy them and put them into your current iTunes library just by adding them to the music folder there.
 
I tried that. Even though it shows the old email address in the Get Info/File tab, when I try to get the password (I dont remember what it would have been), I get an error message that says that email is not an apple id.
 
I tried that. Even though it shows the old email address in the Get Info/File tab, when I try to get the password (I dont remember what it would have been), I get an error message that says that email is not an apple id.
Okay, let's try something different. Where are these files that have the protection on them? Do you have them in your actual current iTunes library?
 
Yes they are in my itunes library.
And it won't let you convert them to MP3? Have you actually put them on the flash drive and tried to play them? There shouldn't be any reason why they wouldn't play unless your player doesn't recognize ACC files. Honestly, at this point if you can't re download from the old account the simplest thing to do would be to burn them to disc and re rip. The thing is if you can burn them you should be able to transfer them to a flash drive.
 
Yes I did put them on the flash drive and they wont play in the car. So maybe the car system doesn't recognize ACC files. I will try it with a CD this weekend. Thanks for taking the time to try and help me!
 
Yes I did put them on the flash drive and they wont play in the car. So maybe the car system doesn't recognize ACC files. I will try it with a CD this weekend. Thanks for taking the time to try and help me!
No problem.
 

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