Pencil Shavings

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

How to burn a multi-session CD in Mac OS X

Burning CDs on a Mac will be the death of me. If you want to create a single-session CD (i.e. you cannot add any more to the CD once you've burned it once), it is quite easy. Just create a new burn folder in Finder (File>New Burn Folder), then drag all the files you want into that folder and click "Burn" whenever you are ready.

But if you are kiasu like me and need to squeeze every last drop of space from every CD or DVD* you use, you need to follow the steps below.

  1. Open Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility)
  2. Create a new disk image from folder (File>New>"Disk Image from Folder.") Select a folder that contains all the items that you want in your CD (you may have to create it first). Click "Image".
  3. Type a name for the image and click Save.
  4. When the disk image is complete, select it in the Disk Utility list and click "Burn" in the toolbar.
  5. Insert a blank CD or DVD.
  6. Select the "Leave disc appendable" checkbox. If you don't see this option, click the triangle in the top-right corner.
  7. Click Burn.

I've wasted 4GB on my DVD because I used the wrong method of burning. Ouch.

[*Alamak! Cannot burn multi-session DVDs on a Mac. What the??? Read Ted Landau's comments here. Have a mentioned that burning CDs on a Mac will be the death of me?]

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