How Do I Add Music to My Digital MP3 Player?

Factors to Consider Before Adding

• Before you can begin adding music, there are things you need to know and factors to consider. First, your computer needs to meet the operating-system requirements to add music to your digital MP3 player. This is important for the performance of your computer and for the device to work. You also must have songs stored on your computer's hard drive in MP3 format. If the songs are not saved on your computer, there is no way to retrieve them and add them, or to play them back once they are installed to the device. (See Resources for converting songs to MP3 format.)

Tools to Do the Job

• To add music to your MP3 player, your computer must have a media player installed to its hard drive. Windows Media Player is highly recommended for actions such as adding music to your MP3 player. Your digital MP3 player should come equipped with a USB sync cable. The cord lets you connect your MP3 player to the computer to transfer your music.

Add Your Music to the Digital MP3 Player

• Connect your MP3 player's USB sync cable to the device and into one of your computer's USB ports. When you connect the device, your computer will alert you with a sound or a pop-up indicator in the lower right corner of the screen. An AutoPlay window will open in a pop-up dialog box in the middle of your screen. Select the "Add Files" action in the AutoPlay window and your computer's default media player will open. Access your media player's library to view the songs on your computer. Click on the "Sync" tab at the top of the media player. The Sync action will allow you to add songs to your digital MP3 player. Drag each file to the Sync pane on the right side of the screen. Once you finish dragging and dropping your list of songs, click on the "Start Sync" action at the bottom of the pane.

Adding Music in Different Scenarios

• You may get to a point where you have no more storage space on your device. Without storage space, you can no longer add songs to your digital MP3 player. To make room once your device is full, you need to delete songs from your device.

  Click on your computer's Start menu icon on your taskbar, and select the "My Computer" tab folder. When the My Computer window opens, your MP3 player's icon and folder will be listed. Click on your MP3 player's folder to view the songs you have on the device. Right-click and select the delete file for each song you want to remove to create storage space. (See Resources for device storage information and for details if you are using an operating system other than Windows.)