Q: How do I bookmark a place after I pause during a song or audiobook?
– Michelle
A: There is no way on the iPod or iPhone itself to actually bookmark your position. Instead, you need to change a setting on your individual tracks in iTunes to make them “bookmarkable.”
To do this, in iTunes select the song or audiobook in which you would like to remember the playback position, and then choose File, Get Info from the iTunes menu. From the file info dialog box, choose the “Options” tab to display the options for that track:
Simply check the box marked “Remember Playback Position” and click OK to close the file information dialog box. Note that you may also modify this option for multiple tracks by selecting all of the tracks that you would like to make bookmarkable before choosing the Get Info option.
If you are synchronizing your iPod or iPhone with your iTunes library automatically, simply reconnect your device to resync these track changes back to the device. If you are using manual mode, you will need to manually re-copy the track to your device to update it.
Once this option has been set, your device will automatically remember the playback position in these tracks whenever you stop listening to them. Further, if you are using automatic synchronization, this “bookmark” will be transferred back to iTunes the next time you synchronize your device with your iTunes library, and will even sync out to any other iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV devices you may be synchronizing that library with.
Keep in mind that this is an “all-or-nothing” setting for each track. When “Remember Playback Position” is turned ON for a track, the iPod and iTunes will always remember the playback position and start playing where you left off the next time you listen. Therefore, this is probably not something you want to do for music tracks, but is frequently very useful for spoken word content such as audiobooks and lectures.
Note that Audiobooks downloaded from the iTunes Store or Audible.com, and Podcasts downloaded via iTunes itself have the “Remember Playback Position” setting enabled by default.
