How to Get Lyrics in iTunes Automatically [Windows]

No matter your musical taste, it can be pleasant to have access to the lyrics quickly and easy, whether for general trivia or to learn lyrics to tracks. Unfortunately, adding lyrics to iTunes so that they can be displayed on other devices is often a time-consuming and tedious task. Fortunately, a developer has solved this conundrum with a free utility capable of automatically looking up and adding these lyrics; development seems to have halted, so the download is hosted on Codeplex.

The tool is quite simple to use, but there are no documents or guides provided alongside the download, so it is not immediately obvious how it is to be used. Note that in order to run the program, you will need to have the .NET 3.5 framework installed – without this, it will simply not execute. Install this to ensure there are no compatibility issues.

1. iTunes must be open for the tool to work, so it makes sense to open it before you open the tool that interfaces with it.

2. In iTunes, find a track that you would like to add lyrics to. Click the track so that it is highlighted. You do not need to have the song playing, though you can should you desire to.

3. In the lyrics tool, select your lookup resource. As development seems to have halted entirely, it is unlikely that more options will be added over time, so your choices are restricted to either LyricsWiki or Leo’s Lyrics. Our experience suggests that LyricsWiki is more comprehensive than Leo’s Lyrics, though this may vary depending on the tracks.

4. Choose whether to update automatically and whether to overwrite. With automatic updates unchecked, you will have to check that the lyrics are correct before confirming that they are added to the song. Overwriting will replace anything already entered in the lyrics section; this can be convenient if you have already entered lyrics and found them to be inaccurate. If overwriting is not enabled and the song already has lyrics, it will be skipped.

5. Assuming you have not automatically updated, the popup window that follows will contain the lyrics. You can edit these if you would prefer to break them up in a different manner or would prefer to replace repeated verses with a note, such as “(x2).”

6. Because of how both LyricsWiki and Leo’s Lyrics work, it is worth mentioning that this tool is not suited to finding lyrics to rap music. They rely on your song’s name in iTunes being identical to their own listing. For example if they have a track without its featured artists in the title and you do, the lyrics importer will not be able to find the lyrics. In this instance, it is probably better to manually add the lyrics using a resource such as Rap Genius. Similarly, a track with the same name released in two languages may not always have the correct lyrics.

Finally, you can add lyrics to multiple tracks at once. Simply hold Ctrl and click additional songs you’d like to add lyrics to. Entire albums can be queued for lyrics by pressing “Ctrl + A” and so on. This can make the process significantly quicker, though trying to add a large number of songs at once can result in the tool ceasing to respond.

Despite a few inherent flaws with the lookup method used and some issues with responsiveness, the tool is one of the best we have discovered for quickly adding more detail to songs. It is also easy to use and crucially, it is easily explained to others as well.