Apple have made it super easy to get music files from the iTunes store onto your iPod. But it’s not so obvious how to download a music file from the Internet to your iPod or iPhone.
SUMMARY: The trick to download a file form the internet is to hold down the ‘control’ key while you click on the file, and then select ‘download linked file as.’ Then you need to drag it into iTunes. (Pressing control while you click is exactly the same as doing a ‘right click’ with you mouse)
1. Firstly you need to download the audio file from the Internet to your computer. Have a look at this article on ABC radio national for example.
Underneath the heading there are two icons.
The triangular arrow on the left is indicating that you can listen to the article by pressing play.
The arrow pointing downwards is indicating that you can ‘ download’ the audio file.
If you click on this it will probably download it to your safari downloads folder. You can take control of where the file downloads to by right clicking on the arrow or holding down the “control” key while you click on the arrow. You will get a menu like this:
If you select “Download Linked File As…” then you can choose where the file saves to. Here I have decided to save it to my desktop so that I can find it easily:
Hit save and the file will be copied from the Internet down to your computer and you should be able to see it on your desktop. Here is a screenshot of the downloaded audio file on my computer’s desktop.
The download button above that you clicked on might look slightly different on different websites. Some might have a down pointing arrow. Some might simply have the word ‘download’. But whatever the case, you can right click (or press control while you click) and choose ‘Download Liked File As.’
1. Open iTunes on your computer and plug in your iPad or iPhone. It should appear as a little icon and name in the sidebar of your iTunes window under “devices”. It will look something like this. ( My iPod is named “silver.”)
2. Arrange your iTunes window so that you can see both your iPod icon and the audio file that is sitting on your desktop. You may need to make the iTunes window smaller by clicking and dragging the bottom right-hand corner of the window. You may need to move the audio file on your desktop to a different position.
3. Now click on the audio file on your desktop, keep holding the mouse button down, and drag the file onto your iPod icon in the iTunes window, and let go. When the file sits on top of the iPod icon the line should turn blue like this:
4. The file should now copy across onto your iPad. You might be able to see the progress of this in your iTunes window.
5. When it has finished copying you can simply press the eject icon (the little arrow to the right of your iPod icon) to eject your iPod.
Enjoy listening!
