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Is there an iTunes album artwork size limit?

steve62388

steve62388

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 23, 2013
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I’m wondering if there is a size limit (either resolution or file size) for album covers in the iOS Music app? And does it vary from device to device?

I ask because I have been downloading hi-res artwork from the iTunes Store (from here https://bendodson.com/projects/itunes-artwork-finder/ if you’re interested) and manually adding them to my library on my Mac. I then sync to my iOS devices. The really big ones seem to be having problems syncing, they say the are syncing but don’t copy across at all. Syncing again and it tries to copy them again. There are no error messages.
 
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I just want to use a high res artwork. By today's standards 600 * 600 is too low. And at the end of the day Apple must consider there is a need for it because it's available for download.
 
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This is the spec for podcasts, but, should be the same for music.

Podcast feeds contain artwork that is a minimum size of 1400 x 1400 pixels and a maximum size of 3000 x 3000 pixels, 72 dpi, in JPEG or PNG format with appropriate file extensions (.jpg, .png), and in the RGB colorspace. To optimize images for mobile devices, Apple recommends compressing your image files.
Click to expand...

https://help.apple.com/itc/podcasts_connect/#/itc1723472cb
 
If your device is running iOS 11, which I assume you do, the image artwork size limit is 10MB. Back in the old days, it was 5MB. I use super high res artworks whenever possible, so I find it out rather quickly. Some of my original artworks can be over 200MB in size.
 
Shirasaki said:
If your device is running iOS 11, which I assume you do, the image artwork size limit is 10MB. Back in the old days, it was 5MB. I use super high res artworks whenever possible, so I find it out rather quickly. Some of my original artworks can be over 200MB in size.
Click to expand...

Ah. Most useful. I am definitely bumping into this size limit. I wonder how I can easily re-size them?
 
steve23094 said:
Ah. Most useful. I am definitely bumping into this size limit. I wonder how I can easily re-size them?
Click to expand...
Well, if your original artwork is in low quality, don’t bother. However, if you happen to buy any CD, you can scan the artwork with good scanner. Sometimes the resulting imagine could be 200MB+. Those scanned artworks worth more on scaling down.
If you still want to scale up, you can find Apple script that can extract artwork of currently playing song. Once done, you can then scale the artwork up using photoshop.
 
Anybody know a free app which can resize images based on resolution and size at the same time?
 
I just take a screen shot of the hi res art and use the png file < cmd + ctrl + shift + 4 < then paste into the artwork area.

I keep the original in the folder with the music
 
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