After using the simplest ever method for adding files to iTunes, I kind of forgot the whole importing thing – it’s automatic. But I recently reminded myself of the need to regularly check the “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder for any files that were rejected.
What I saw was that more than 15 MP3-files had not been imported. I tested them and they played fine on VLC, even in QuickTime Player. But in spite of trying all possibilities of adding them to iTunes, they were ignored. Weird.
Something in the files made iTunes throw up. I never figured out what, but I figured out a solution. I went to Mac App Store and downloaded Music Converter (free version). When I drag and drop an audio file onto it, it will do any necessary conversion and send it to iTunes. It can even make Apple Lossless, FLAC, etc! In this case, the conversion was instantaneous, hinting at there was something in the MP3 container or ID3 tags that were wrong (rather than a more time consuming codec conversion / transcoding), but that Music Converter could fix. Now all my songs are imported in iTunes!