CD burning program

By now the cloud and more flexible storage devices, such as memory cards and USB sticks, have taken over but sometimes it can still be convenient to burn a CD: this is the reason why I’m here today and I want to take stock of the situation on the best programs to burn CDs on Windows and macOS.

There are many solutions for burning, both free and paid, but for this post I decided to take particular care of the free ones and already integrated into computer operating systems, which often have little or nothing to envy to the very expensive commercial solutions (unless you have specific needs in terms of video editing or you need particularly advanced functions).

So, what do you think? Are you ready to get started and find out which CD burning program is right for you? If your answer is yes, take some free time and keep reading: below you will find a list of applications suitable for all tastes and needs. Try to find the one that best suits your needs and find out how to use it thanks to the information I’m about to give you.

Index

• Program to burn MP3 CDs
  • File Explorer (Windows)
  • Finder (macOS)
  • Other programs to burn MP3 CDs
• Program for burning audio CDs
  • Windows Media Player (Windows)
  • Music / iTunes (macOS)
  • Other programs for burning audio CDs
• Free CD Burning Program: Other Formats

Program to burn MP3 CDs

Let’s start with programs for burning MP3 CDs and containing files that can be read by computers, consoles and car stereos compatible with the aforementioned audio format. By doing so, the songs are stored in the form of independent files and not audio tracks, which greatly increases the capacity of the disc, which is calculated in terms of space and not duration (a traditional CD can contain up to 700 MB of data ).

Also keep in mind that the same strategy can be used to burn other types of files to disc as well: documents, videos, presentations, and so on, which can be read by any compatible device.

File Explorer (Windows)

If your computer is equipped with a Windows operating system, you can easily create an MP3 or data CD using the integrated functions of the File Explorer, that is the program used to manage files and folders.

So, to start, insert the blank CD into your computer drive, close it and, if you are using Windows 10 or later, click on the AutoPlay notification message; if, on the other hand, you are using an older version of Microsoft’s operating system, wait for the window of the same name to appear automatically. Now, click on the option to Burn files to disc – File Explorer and, if necessary, hit the OK button to go to the burning screen.

If, after inserting the blank disk into the optical drive, nothing happens, manually open the Windows File Explorer by clicking on the yellow folder symbol located in the taskbar, select the item This PC visible in the left sidebar and double-click the CD / DVD drive icon (eg DVD RW (E 🙂 drive ).

The procedures, starting from now, are the same: when you reach the new disc creation window, type a title to assign (eg. My MP3s ) in the appropriate text field, indicate that you want to use the disc with a CD / DVD player by placing the check mark next to the appropriate item and click on the Next button to open the File Explorer window dedicated to burning.

The game is practically done: at this point, drag the MP3 files you want to burn into the screen opened a little while ago (if your player supports folders, you can insert those too), in order to add them to the disc and, after having them copied all, click on the Disc Tools button located at the top and then on the Complete Burning button, residing in the panel that appears later.

At this point, indicate the recording speed using the appropriate drop-down menu, click on the Next button, put the check mark next to the item Create a data CD (if necessary) and press the Next button, to start the burning process, at the end of which the disc will be ejected you will see a confirmation message indicating the success of the procedure.

Finally, if you intend to create a second disc using the same files, put the check mark next to the dedicated box, press the Next button and, when prompted, insert another blank CD in the drive; otherwise, click on the Finish button to end the wizard.

Finder (macOS)

Burn CDs (and DVDs) and MP3 data with the Finder of Mac is just as easy to get started, insert the disc into the optical drive of your computer and, if you see a Mac window that asks you what operation you prefer to accomplish, click on the item Open Finder and press the OK button to confirm.

If nothing happens, you can achieve the same result by double-clicking on the untitled/blank CD icon that should have appeared on your desktop, or by manually opening the Finder (just click on the smiling face icon attached to the Dock ) and clicking on the disk icon, visible in the left sidebar, under the heading Devices.

Now, drag all the MP3 files you want to copy onto the disc into the Finder window you opened earlier (be careful not to exceed the available space on the CD) and, when done, select the File> Burn [ disc name] located in the Mac menu bar, or press the Burn button located at the top right, to switch to the data writing screen.

Finally, indicate the name to be assigned to the disc in the appropriate text field, use the burning speed drop-down menu to choose the writing speed you want and, to start the process (which could take up to a few minutes, depending on the amount of data and at the chosen writing speed), click the Burn button.

If you need to make multiple copies of the same disc, before starting to write the data, put the checkmark next to the Save burning folder in item, so that you can resume all the files from the folder in question, without having to select them again.

Note: if you want to create an MP3 CD starting not from files available individually, but from songs or playlists included in the Music application, you can use the latter software, as you will find indicated in one of the following sections of this guide.

Other programs to burn MP3 CDs

If the integrated utilities in Windows and macOS are not in line with your needs, you can obtain more than appreciable results using one of the many third-party software available on the Net: below you will list the ones that, in my opinion, are the best of the category.

• CDBurnerXP( Windows ): is a lightweight but functional program that allows you to easily create data / MP3 CDs, as well as audio discs and copies of existing media, in just a couple of clicks. It’s free.
• BurnAware Free( Windows ): it is a program characterized by an extremely intuitive interface, in which it is sufficient to complete a wizard to easily burn discs of various types, including MP3 ones. It’s free.
• Burn( macOS ): is a complete and functional burning software, which allows you to create discs of various types, including those in MP3 format. Although it has not been updated for some time, the program also works very well on the most recent editions of macOS. It’s free.

Program for burning audio CDs

Let’s now pass to the programs for burning audio CDs, i.e. discs that can also be read by car stereos, Hi-Fi systems and consoles, even old generation ones: unlike MP3-type discs, audio discs are made up of tracks and not of data and the maximum capacity is not defined in terms of space, but of time (a standard audio CD can hold up to 80 minutes of music). Speaking of which, if you need it, I’ve made a guide on the best CDs to burn music.

Windows Media Player (Windows)

Not everyone is aware of it, but the Windows Media Player multimedia player, starting from Windows 7, integrates a convenient feature that allows you to create audio CDs starting from songs stored in one of the formats compatible with the multimedia player (MP3, WMA, MID, MIDI, and so on).

So, first of all, call up the program in question directly from the Start menu or from the Windows Start Screen (in some editions of the operating system, it resides in the Windows Accessories folder ), click on the Burn tab located at the top right and, if not you have already done so, insert a blank CD into the player, so as to immediately realize what the remaining playing time is (you can use the signal bar that appears immediately below the CD icon).

Now, drag the songs you want to write to the disc into the small side pane of Windows Media Player, identified by the wording Drag items here: in this case, you can drag both files from other folders on your computer, and items included in the catalog multimedia.

Please note that the files will be written to the disc in the same order in which they appear in the burn list: to make changes, “grab” the song you want to move with the mouse and drag it to the most appropriate position to reorder it.

Once you have created your playlist, make sure that there is enough space on the disc to contain all the songs (if not, the bar next to the CD icon will turn red) and, when you are ready, click on the Start Burn button, to write audio tracks to disc using Windows default settings. You can check the progress of the procedure by using the progress bars visible next to each song title, or by taking a look at the progress percentage that appears in the lower right corner of the window.

If you prefer, you can customize the burning settings to your liking: before proceeding with the disc burning, click on the button showing a window with a checkmark located next to the Start burning button, select the item Other burning options … from the menu that appears and served by the drop-down menus and checkboxes displayed to define the speed of the burning, the application or not of the volume leveling for the songs (or normalization) and the application or not of pauses between the songs.

Music / iTunes (macOS)

The macOS default media player, Music, also lets you burn audio CDs – but also MP3 discs – from a playlist. However, I have to warn you right away that it is possible to burn media files imported into Music, but not content downloaded from iTunes Store / Apple Music, as the latter are DRM protected. The same indications also apply to iTunes, the historic Apple program available on older versions of macOS instead of Music and still downloadable on Windows.

Having said that, let’s see how to proceed: after inserting the CD into the optical drive of the Mac, start the Music application by recalling it from the Dock (the icon depicts a musical note ) and, if you have not already done so, create a playlist containing the songs to burn: activate the Songs view by clicking on the appropriate item located in the left sidebar and, using the combination cmd + mouse click, select, one at a time, the songs to be transferred to the disc.

Now, right-click on any of the chosen songs and choose the items Add to playlist> New playlist from the menu that opens and assign a name to the playback queue, using the appropriate field; later, you can insert new songs in the list, simply by right clicking on their previews and selecting the items Add to playlist> from the menu that appears.

At this point, right-click on the name of the playlist you just created (located in the left sidebar), select the item Burn playlist to disc … from the context menu that appears and, if you intend to create an audio CD, put the sign tick next to the appropriate item, choose the distance to be applied between one song and another and indicate whether to use the volume check (thus trying to assign the same volume to all the tracks). If, on the other hand, you want to create an MP3 disc starting from the playlist, put the checkmark next to MP3 CD.

Regardless of the choice made, choose the burner to use from the drop-down menu located at the top, indicate the preferred writing speed using the menu immediately below and, when you are ready, click on the Burn button to transfer the songs to the disc.

Other programs for burning audio CDs

If the solutions I told you about did not meet your needs because, for example, the original format of the audio files is not compatible with the tools included in Windows and macOS, know that there are some alternative software that allows you to get results for everything respect: here are some of them.

• BurnAware Free( Windows ): the aforementioned program allows you to easily create audio CDs, starting from multimedia files of different formats. It’s free.
• Nero Burning ROM / Nero Platinum( Windows ): The well-known burning suites allow, among other things, to create audio CDs from a large amount of multimedia files. Thanks to the built-in editor, you can also edit songs before you even burn them. The software of the Nero suites are paid, but can be tried for free for a period of 14 days.
• Roxio Toast 19 Titanium( macOS ): This is a complete suite for burning discs and editing multimedia content. Given the far from low cost of the license of the program, I advise you to take it into consideration only if you need to apply changes, even important ones, to the multimedia files to be burned. It is paid, with prices starting from 79 €.

Free CD Burning Program: Other Formats

How do you say? Do you need to burn a disc starting from a file type not listed so far, such as an ISO image and would like some “tips” on the programs to use?

Well, even in this case, I’m happy to tell you that the solution is integrated into the Windows and macOS operating systems and, at least as regards the ISO files, you can burn them without installing anything.

Let me tell you how. If you are using Windows, insert the blank CD into the optical drive of the computer, close it and close any AutoPlay screen that opens; now, right-click on the icon of the ISO image to be written to the disc, select the Burn ISO image item from the context menu that appears on the screen and choose the burner to use, using the appropriate drop-down menu.

Now, if you want Windows to perform a verification of the written files (which takes additional time) once the CD writing is complete, put the checkmark in the box next to Verify the disc after burning; to start the burning process, click on the Burn button and that’s it.

On Mac, on the other hand, you can take advantage of the system tool based on Disk Utility, which works in a quite similar way to what is seen for Windows: therefore, after inserting the blank disk into the burner, right-click on the icon of the ISO file (or DMG ) you want to burn and select the Burn disc image [name] item from the context menu that appears.

Now, use the drop-down menus Burn disc and Speed to choose, respectively, the burner and the writing speed to use; to finish, choose whether or not to check the burned files, whether to eject the disc at the end of the writing or whether to activate it on the desktop and, after completing the adjustments, click on the Burn button to start copying the data to the disc.

If something is not clear to you, or if you find it necessary to use third-party programs to burn more complex ISOs (e.g. boot discs for some operating systems), or if you need to burn BIN / CUE, you can refer to the thematic tutorials on my site.

Finally, if you need to copy files of various types for backup or transfer purposes, you can use the same steps seen in the chapter dedicated to MP3 discs: clearly, it will be possible to read the burned files only from computers, consoles or players that support their formats and extensions.