Apple yesterday released iTunes 12.7.2, yet another maintenance update to the app. There are no major changes, but I spotted something interesting in the preferences. Previously, even if you didn’t have an optical drive connected to your Mac, the General preferences showed a menu allowing you to choose what iTunes does when a CD is detected.
Now, in iTunes 12.7.2, that menu is not displayed if there is no drive. The Import Settings button is still there, but not the When a CD is Inserted menu.
This makes sense, in some ways. If you don’t have an optical drive, you don’t need to see these settings. And no current Macs offer internal optical drives, and few people use them in any case. But if you occasionally connect an optical drive to your computer via USB, then you’ll only know this setting exists if the drive is actually connected.
You still need the Import Settings (though the name isn’t correct); this lets you set a format and bit rate for files that you convert in iTunes. You can do this by selecting one or more files, then choosing File > Convert > Create [format] Version.