Nov 12, 2018  How to share/export your GarageBand iOS songs (iPhone/iPad) Looking to share export your project files? Saving as a file (Files or iTunes) - and why you can't send to you music library 8. I have a copy of GarageBand 4 (I think it's branded as 'iLife 08' in the retail box) on an old Mac. I bought a new Mac, and want to transfer the app to it. (By my reading of the license, this is.

• How To Send Garageband Files From Mac To Windows 10
• How To Share Garageband Files

GarageBand exports exactly one file format — the Audio Interchange File Format (with extensions of aif, aiff, AIF, or AIFF). Fortunately, AIF files are the gold standard of audio files, the highest-of-high-quality uncompressed audio that you can save on a disc. AIF files sound great, but a cost is incurred: The files are huge — too big to send via e-mail or download or to stream from the Internet.

AIF files are, by definition, uncompressed. They’re usually five to ten times the size of a song in its compressed form (that is, encoded or ripped). Other audio file formats, such as MP3 and AAC, are compressed and are much smaller, by 50 to 95 percent, than the same song uncompressed.

Sound quality

How To Send Garageband Files From Mac To Windows 10

Compression, by its nature, takes away part of the sound. In theory, it’s the part that people can’t hear, but some people do notice a big difference between uncompressed audio and compressed audio, even on cheap stereo systems. Others can’t tell any difference.

Some people can hear the difference between compressed audio files that are encoded (ripped) at bit rates of 160 and 192 Kbps. Others hear no difference.

The smaller, compressed audio files sound good enough to most people most of the time and have become a de facto standard for consumer audio.

iPods (and most other personal music players) and iTunes (and most other personal music-playing software not made by Microsoft) can play both uncompressed and compressed files. But most people store most of their music as compressed audio files, allowing five, eight, or even ten times as many songs to be stored in the same amount of hard drive space.

The compressed file formats can encode your song at different bit rates. The higher the bit rate, the better the song will sound. Alas, the higher the bit rate is, the bigger the file will be.

Choosing a compression type

How To Share Garageband Files

The quality of an AIF file is top-of-the-heap because it, by definition, contains 100 percent uncompressed audio. Nothing has been added or removed; every note, breath, harmonic, overtone, string noise, buzz, hiss, and other sound in the master recording is in an AIF file.

Technically, the files on an audio CD are “Red Book Audio” files, which are slightly different from AIF files. The technical aspects aren’t important; the important part is that when you shove an audio CD into your Mac, it sees Red Book Audio files and automatically thinks of them as AIF files. No conversion or translation is needed — to your Mac, Red Book Audio files are AIF files, and vice versa, even if the rest of the world says that Red Book and AIF are different.

The problem is, while uncompressed audio may be the right format for shiny silver discs, it’s not the right format for e-mail or the Web, because AIF files are gargantuan.

Fortunately, if you have GarageBand, you also have the right tool for compressing AIF files, and in fact, that tool is already open and ready to rip. That tool is GarageBand’s iLife sibling, iTunes. With iTunes, it’s child’s play to compress (rip or encode) AIF files into MP3, AAC, or even Apple’s new high-quality lossless encoder, and it’s all done behind the scenes using iTunes built-in (and very high-quality) encoders.

MP3 and AAC are the two most common compressed audio file formats on the Mac. MP3 came first and has essentially been the compressed audio standard for many years. Then, a couple of years ago, when Apple introduced the iTunes Music Store, it also introduced the AAC file format, which it uses for the store’s rights-protected songs.

Figure 1 is worth a couple of thousand words — it shows the same song saved in all four formats and the size of each file.

Table 1 is a handy reference to the different file types and the common ways in which each type is used.

Figure 1: Compare the file size of the same song saved in four different file formats.

Table 1: File Types Large and Small

GarageBand for iOS saves songs within the app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. If you delete the GarageBand app, you'll also delete your songs. In case you ever have to delete and reinstall the app, make sure to back up your songs first. You can back up your songs by uploading them to iCloud, exporting them to iCloud Drive, or copying them to another Apple device using AirDrop.

You can also back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. A backup of your iOS device includes the songs saved within the GarageBand app. Make sure to back up your device so you can access your songs in case you lose, replace, or damage it.

Upload songs to iCloud

When you upload your songs to iCloud, you can access them and keep them up to date on all your iOS devices. You can upload all your songs at once to iCloud.

1. Make sure to turn on iCloud for GarageBand.
2. On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap in the Control Bar, then tap My Songs.
   On an iPad, tap My Songs in the Control Bar.
3. Tap Select.
4. Tap the songs you want to upload.
5. In the Control Bar, tap .
6. Tap Upload Songs to iCloud. After your songs upload to iCloud, you'll see them in the My Songs browser with an iCloud icon.
   

If you delete and reinstall the app or if you get a new device, songs uploaded to iCloud automatically appear in the My Songs browser. To access the songs on a new device, make sure to sign in with your Apple ID.

Export songs to iCloud Drive

Using iCloud Drive, you can access your songs from another iOS device, a Mac, or a PC. You can export one song at a time to iCloud Drive.

1. Make sure to set up iCloud Drive on your devices.
2. On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap in the Control Bar, then tap My Songs.
   On an iPad, tap My Songs in the Control Bar.
3. Tap Select.
4. Tap the song you want to back up.
5. Tap .
6. In the Share dialog, tap iCloud Drive.
7. Tap Project.
8. Browse to the location where you want to save the song.

After reinstalling GarageBand or getting a new device, you can import a song from iCloud Drive to GarageBand on your device.

1. On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap in the Control Bar, then tap My Songs.
   On an iPad, tap My Songs in the Control Bar.
2. Tap , then tap Import from iCloud Drive.
3. In the iCloud Drive dialog, locate and tap the song you want to import.

The GarageBand songs you keep in iCloud use your iCloud storage. When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage. If you use all your iCloud storage, you can buy more. Or you can use AirDrop to back up your songs to another device.

Back up songs using AirDrop

To back up your songs to another Apple device, you can use AirDrop. AirDrop makes a copy of the song on another Apple device.

1. Make sure to turn on AirDrop on your Mac and your iOS device.
2. On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap in the Control Bar, then tap My Songs.
   On an iPad, tap My Songs in the Control Bar.
3. Tap Select.
4. Tap the song you want to back up.
5. Tap .
6. Tap the name of the AirDrop user or Apple device you want to send the file to.
7. Tap Project. AirDrop copies the song to the following locations:

• On a Mac, the song is saved to the Downloads folder.
• On an iOS device, the song opens in GarageBand. If GarageBand isn’t installed on that device, you can choose to get the app or save the song to iCloud Drive.

Learn More

• Use iCloud with GarageBand on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
• Use iCloud Drive.
• Use AirDrop with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.