I am old and need some advice.

I am sunsetting my 10 year old laptop and new one on order does not have a CD drive. So before I mothball this thing, I would like to get all my CD's stored to the cloud.

I do not want to use i-tunes if possible. I-tunes will not install or load on my current laptop, and even if itunes worked, it stores/converts my music to some proprietary format that does not work with other stuff sometimes. I have loaded many of these CD's to my library several times, but with all the itunes problems over the years, that was time wasted and am willing to do this one more time to get it right so I can get rid of the physical CD's.

With my new laptop I will have MS 365 personal and it has 1TB cloud storage I can use.

How would you accomplish this? It is only a couple hundred CD's since I only listen to good music from my generation!

I was going to say iTunes Match, but you don't want to go through iTunes.

I'm old, too, so just a couple of thoughts. I also upgraded my laptop to a model without a CD/DVD reader/writer. I quickly figured out that on occasion I needed one. I ordered a USB DVD reader/writer from Amazon. They cost between $20 and $25.

As for as cloud storage of digital music, I've ripped most of my old CDs to my hard drive and copied a backup onto a 4TB external network drive connected to my LAN. It works for me, but it may not be what you're wanting.

Sign up for a free trial of Apple music (or Spotify)

Go through and do a search of all your CDs to see whether they are in the catalog.

The ones that aren't in there, rip the CDs.

The audio quality on Apple music is the best you'll find IMO.

I got a couple of stereo paired home pods and I'm amazed at the sound quality.

I cant conceive of better sound quality than what they got on there with the lossless and spatial audio.

Using your 1TB OneDrive subscription to store your music library is definitely doable. There are tools that will allow you to stream directly from your OneDrive folder once you get your music library uploaded. As far as ripping all of your CDs, I'm sure there are a ton of tools out there to get the job done, but i haven't ripped a CD in probably 15 years.

All depends on what you want. Last time I did this, I used EAC (ExactAudioCopy) to rip to FLAC+CUE, then used ImgBurn mount the FLAC+CUE and imported those into iTunes. FLACs used on my tablet and computer with compatible players, and the iTunes copy was used for my phone. I also burned my top ~10 cds back to disc, left the originals on my shelf and took the copies in the car.

There's certainly less convoluted processes though, I wanted a way to restore a bit-identical copy of the discs.

Just get a USB cd/dvd drive, they are cheap. Plug in when you need it, shelve it when you dont.

I've found that with a very large digital music library that itunes is still the best. I have like 40k songs in my library and itunes is the only thing that can handle that size of a library relatively quickly, so just keep that in mind. Also you can rip your albums into MP3's on itunes you just have to change the export settings.

If you only have a couple hundred CD's than you should be fine. I would suggest Music Center for PC, its software by sony (link below). It can rip your CD's in bit rate higher than itunes can and in mp3 format. It also automatically pulls the track and album art information from the internet.


https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/MC4PC020001

You will be fine to upload it all on OneDrive. Even at high quality MP3's don't take up a ton of space. I don't know what app you can use to stream your music through OneDrive. I used to use Groove Music that was made by Microsoft but they discontinued it. You can listen to your music directly through the OneDrive app if nothing else works.

Ripping all your CD's will take a while, it still takes me 20ish minutes per CD so be prepared for that. If your old computer is slow and sucks and may take longer. You can get an external USB CD/DVD drive for your computer for like 30 to 40 dollars. If it'll significantly speed up the process it'll be worth the cost, plus it's nice to have around. I don't use mine much but the every few months I need it, it has been nice to have around.

Thanks for all of the responses. Once I have my new laptop I will decide how to proceed with all the above choices. Perhaps iTunes will work right on a newer machine or maybe Windows 11 comes with something better.


I just need to eventually get rid of the physical CD's. My retirement plans don't include moving things like that around with us.

Going to have the same issues with old pictures and wedding DVD's (or whatever they are).

I have a similar problem. Got the external CD drive.

Also have Media Monkey software as an alternative to I tunes although it isn't a real endorsement as I don't use either much

Confused about the absolute no to iTunes

AdamsBQ06 said:

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Confused about the absolute no to iTunes

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I think I remember reading that iTunes doesn't literally save your version of a song. Instead it will save an Apple Music version of the song in your library. So any unique live or rare versions you have will be lost and overwritten by official versions.

Don't think so. I have a version of Honeybrowne's "Julie at the Bar" that starts off with Fred counting and that's the one in my library and plays on Apple Music. The version on their album is awful and much more "produced." Not sure if this was ever on an album because it's not on the Real album either.

Plex is pretty good. Your own private server

I think it depends if it's an exact match you get their version. If it isn't then you keep yours.

I have the BQ song in my library and it's definitely not in theirs.

My problems with itunes were as follows:

- iTunes simply will not run on my PC. I worked fine until it did not. I have wasted hours trying to update iTunes and even trying to uninsall and reload it.

- When I needed to load some songs to an MP3 player, they were the wrong format and would not play on my other non-Itunes device. To use my own music on another device I had to first run each song through a converter.

Short answer is iTunes wastes my time. Of course I am old and do not know how all of this should be used properly, but it is just too much trouble for me and I just want stuff to work.

I like Stat Monitor Repairman's idea above. Granted, you will then be paying for an Apple Music subscription so if you don't want to do that then it's not a good idea for you. If you specifically only listen to your personal collection it will be a waste of money.

I broke down and got a subscription about 6 months ago because there is a lot of classic music out there that I never owned via CD that I love so I can just quickly "+" it to my collection when I see it.

Tibbers said:

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Plex is pretty good. Your own private server

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^^^This. Plex has a new-ish music player called Plexamp that works pretty flawlessly for me - it can Cast/Airplay, do android auto or Carplay, and can be accessed remotely. You do have to rip your CD's, but once you get the hang of it and set up the configuration of your software (I use EAC), it's not hard at all. I personally have a desktop with two CD drives to help with ripping though. I have a Lifetime Plexpass that lets me avoid the subscription that is seemingly ubiquitous these days.

ETA: to explain further, you put the CDs in a filesystem on a PC (I save as FLACs), put Plex server software on that PC, and then point it to that filesystem. There is a standard Plex app that can play all media types (I also use Plex for movies, home videos, podcasts, etc) but they have Plexamp as an app dedicated to a better music experience.

When it comes time to digitize your old photos I suggest buying an autofeed scanner like this. It'll seem like a lot to spend on a scanner but you'll be able to scan thousands of pictures in a matter of hours and it'll be worth it.

I scan everything now. Bills, important docs, receipts, whatever. It's all backed up in the cloud and once I'm done with the original i shred it. I can always reprint it later on if i need it. Everything is drastically more organized and I don't have a bunch of random papers taking up space.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/epson-rapidreceipt-rr-600w-wireless-receipt-and-desktop-document-scanner/6442939.p?skuId=6442939

You need to take up ac04 on his offer. The man knows his stuff. No matter what it is you are trying to digitize, be it old vhs, semi-old DVD, BluRay, CDs, microfiche, literary anything, there is only one final answer…LaserDisc.

https://texags.com/forums/30/topics/792948