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I would like to add an artwork to an album which has files saved in .wav format. I know that it is not possible to attach an artwork to a wave file, so I'm trying to add a standalone artwork.jpg file to the album in iTunes.

I found out that:

  • it is not possible to attach an artwork to a track or an album directly
  • placing an artwork.jpg file in the album's directory doesn't work.
  • I learnt from other sources like this that there iTunes saves artworks somewhere in the Album Artwork folder (probably here: /Users/user/Music/iTunes/Album\ Artwork).

My questions are:

  1. Is it possible to add an artwork manually somewhere in that Album Artwork folder?
  2. Is there any other hacky way to make iTunes actually load an artwork to an album in .wav format?

Note: The album is not available on the iTunes store, so the album hasn't got the official artwork which could be downloaded by iTunes on its own.

Note 2: the traditional way of adding an artwork using Get info does not work for .wav files.

Major update:

It turns out that it is possible to add an artwork to any album in iTunes. The format doesn't matter.

There is one more problem however: it is not possible to add an artwork to an album which has only one track.

Is there a way around it?

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Just find the track [or the entire album] in iTunes, select it then hit Cmd ⌘ i to get info.
Select the Artwork tab then drag your picture from Finder into there.

Unfortunately, this appears to work for just about any format except WAV.
This also applies to an overall 'album' artwork added to the folder rather than files. It will only work if they are not all WAVs.

I'd suggest perhaps converting to AIF, which would be a completely lossless conversion.

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  • Noo, it does not work for wave files, since you cannot add an artwork to them – Mateusz Piotrowski May 10 '15 at 18:58
  • You're right - it used to; the file was added to iTunes rather than the file - I'm testing… will tweak answer if I find any option... – Tetsujin May 10 '15 at 18:59
  • Ahhh, you can add to an AIF, but not a WAV. I'd just convert one to the other; it's completely lossless, not even really a conversion as such. – Tetsujin May 10 '15 at 19:01
  • Yeah, I've considered it already. I was just thinking whether there is a way to put an artwork file in such place that iTunes would automatically load it as an album cover (and not as an artwork of a track itself). – Mateusz Piotrowski May 10 '15 at 19:05
  • If you have it categorised as an 'album' in iTunes, then you can add album artwork in the same way by getting info on the 'album' itself - it then doesn't matter what the files within it are [tested on a composite 'album' of MP3, WAV & AIF] It doesn't add it to WAVs, but it does 'claim' that is the artwork for the 'album' – Tetsujin May 10 '15 at 19:09
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I do that all the time..
Wav. / Aiff. file - Get info. Open the .jpeg file
Copy Command+C and Paste Command+P into the artwork.

enter image description here

Works great!

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In my case it was an mp4 file. So, i pressed right mouse on the file in Itunes, and selected to Create ACC version. After this, I deleted the mp4 file. Then, I could right mouse, get info, and manually add my artwork.

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  • Be sure to actually answer the question asked by the OP; if you want to add a different question you can do so (and answer it yourself), but this looks like a comment, which you will be able to leave when you have enough reputation. – Jaime Santa Cruz Jul 24 '15 at 22:31
  • It is a way around but it is not what I am looking for. I want my file to be in the WAVE format, not ACC. – Mateusz Piotrowski Jul 24 '15 at 23:34
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Here's what I did, since while most of my iTunes albums are recorded as high-quality VBR .mp3's, there are some albums I want to copy as .wav in order to maintain the CD quality while listening through a good sound system.

I go to the last track on the album, right-click on it and select "Create .mp3 version." Once that's done, I right-click on the newly created .mp3 version and add the artwork there as normal. It's now applied to the whole album in iTunes (but will only show up on your iPod or iPhone when playing the single .mp3 file unfortunately.)

Annoying that you have to perform this work-around, but it does at least clean up any missing artwork in iTunes itself. Note you have to keep the spare .mp3 file in the album after adding the artwork, otherwise the apple nazis will once again force removal of the artwork. Sigh.

HTH.

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    As in my original answer, just use AIFs, as the artwork seems to 'stick' for them, iirc. There is no real difference between AIF & WAV, sonically. AIF is actually what CDs are recorded in. – Tetsujin Jan 2 '16 at 17:04

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