Sync Your iPad with iTunes : Manually Transferring Music, Movies, Podcasts, and More on Your iPad (Drag-and-Drop Method)

The Auto Sync sections showed you how to automatically sync content to your iPad. In this section we show you how to manually transfer songs, videos, books, audiobooks, and more. The process is the same for each type of content, so we will show you how to do it for just one type of content, and then you will know how to do it for all types of content.

Use these same drag-and-drop techniques in order to add items to a playlist.

To manually transfer content from your computer to your iPad, follow these steps.

NOTE

If you have chosen to automatically sync content (e.g., music, movies, podcasts, etc.) then you will not be able to use this drag-and-drop method to copy items to your iPad. First you will have to check "Manually manage music and videos" in the Summary tab in iTunes before you try to drag and drop music or videos.

1. Connect your iPad to your computer, and start iTunes software.

2. In the left nav bar, click on your iPad. Then click on the Summary tab at the top. Near the bottom of the screen, make sure the checkbox next to "Manually manage music and videos" is checked. You may see a warning message if you have previously synced music or videos to your iPad, saying that all previously synced music and videos will be replaced with your iTunes library. This is OK.

3. In the left nav bar, under the LIBRARY heading, click the type of content (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes U, etc.) that you would like to transfer.

4. In the main window you will see your library of content. It is usually easiest to select List View from the top of iTunes, as shown in Figure 1. This allows you to see all the content in a list and easily select a single item or group of items.

   Figure 1. Selecting media to drag and drop onto your device

   

5. Start selecting content using any of these methods.

   1. To select an individual item, simply click on it to highlight it.

      
      
      

   2. To select items that are not in a continuous list, Windows users press and hold the Control key while clicking, and Mac users press and hold the Command key while clicking on items.

      
      
      

   3. To select items in a continuous list, press and hold the Shift key on your computer keyboard while clicking the top item, and then the bottom item in the list. All the items in between will be selected.

      
      
      

6. Then, to copy these items to your iPad, simply click and drag the selected item(s) over to your iPad and let go of the mouse button. All selected items will then be copied to your iPad. See Figure 2.

   Figure 2. Dragging and dropping selected items onto your device