Audiobook Frustrations in iTunes

If you’re anything like me, you’ve amassed quite a collection of audidobooks in iTunes over the past couple of years.  One of the biggest frustrations is that they sometimes show up categorized under music rather than audiobooks.  I figured there had to be a reason and after a little bit of research, I found out it’s due to the file extension.  If the audiobook files have an mp3 extension, they will show up in the music folder.  However, if they have an m4b extension, they will show up in the audiobooks folder.  Below are the steps I took to make all of my audiobooks show up in the appropriate folder.

1. Open iTunes and browse to the list of tracks for your audiobook.
2. Highlight all the tracks and right-click your highlighted selection.
3. Click on create AAC version.  This will covert all of the tracks to the m4a format.
4. Once all of the tracks have finished converting, browse to the folder that contains the audiobook files you just converted.  (i.e. c:\documents and settings\username\My Documents\My Music\itunes\itunes music\…)
5. Sort the tracks by type.
6. Delete all of the mp3 tracks.
7. Rename all of the file extensions on the remaining tracks from m4a to m4b.
8. Go back to iTunes and delete the audiobook from your music library.  If it prompts you to keep the associated files say yes.
9. Go up to the File Menu and choose add folder to library.  Browse to and select the appropriate folder and click OK.
10. Your audiobook should now show up in the audiobooks folder rather than music.

Happy converting!