Add album art to your Windows folders

Here’s a great tip for music lovers running Windows XP or Windows Vista. After you rip your entire music CD collection to your hard drive you can easily add album artwork to the folder, when viewed in programs such as Windows Explorer or My Computer.

Here’s a great tip for music lovers running Windows XP or Windows Vista. After you rip your entire music CD collection to your hard drive you can easily add album artwork to the folder, when viewed in programs such as Windows Explorer or My Computer.

Once you add album artwork to Windows folders, at a glance you can see what MP3s are inside.

See accompanying photo for an example.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Rip your music CDs to your computer using a free program like Windows Media Player or iTunes.

2. Scan the CD cover or download the album art from places like Amazon.com. Save it as a .jpg image in the album folder itself.

3. Rename the photo file "folder.jpg."

By doing this, you’ll now see the album artwork, along with the name of the CD, as a thumbnail image for the folder in Windows Explorer or My Computer. To ensure you have the icons set to large, click the Views button in Windows Explorer and cycle through your options.

Filed Under: Computers & Software