How To Download Music To Your iPod Shuffle

By: Rita Wood

Break Studios Contributing Writer

This article will show you how to download music to your iPod Shuffle. Once you download songs to your iPod Shuffle you can listen to them in order or shuffle the songs. You can also play them all at random. The newest iPod Shuffle will actually tell you the names of the songs and playlists. Read on to learn how to download music to your iPod Shuffle.

Connect your iPod Shuffle to your computer by using the USB cable. Connect one end into the iPod and the other end to an available USB port on your computer.
When your iPod is connected to your computer, iTunes should open. If it doesn’t open, then you need to open it. You should see your iPod Shuffle show up in the source list in iTunes.
Click on your iPod Shuffle. Your iTunes will change and display the songs that you can load onto your iPod. There is also an area where there is an auto-fill button. You have the choice of selecting "Replace all songs when auto-filling," "Choose songs randomly" or "Choose higher rated songs more often."
Auto-fill allows you to select a playlist only, a certain genre and more. This is where it is a good idea to set up playlists in iTunes for when you want to transfer certain music to your iPod Shuffle.
When you select "Choose songs randomly," iTunes will auto-fill your iPod Shuffle with random music from your iTunes library. You can also choose a certain playlist. If you uncheck "Choose songs randomly," then auto-fill will fill your iPod Shuffle with songs until it is full.
If you select "Choose higher rated songs more often," you will see the music that you like the most. This only works if you rate the songs that you listen to.
If you select "Replace all songs when auto-filling," you will get different songs every time you sync your iPod. Some people like this because they like being surprised by what songs are on their iPod Shuffle.
Once you have set up auto-fill the way you want, click on the auto-fill button and iTunes will download the music to your iPod Shuffle. Do not disconnect your iPod during this process and do not close iTunes.
You can also download music to your iPod Shuffle manually if auto-fill doesn’t work for you. All you do is drag and drop the songs from your music library or playlists to your iPod Shuffle in the source list. You can drag just one song or many.
When you are finished transferring songs to your iPod you can disconnect your iPod Shuffle from iTunes by clicking on the eject button. After you get the message that it is okay to disconnect your iPod, you can disconnect it from the computer.