How do you "rip" (or "extract") just one track from an audio CD?

Use another program like media player. Then import that single song into itunes.

Sounds like a flaw in iTunes. Windows Media Player will allow you to select tracks (but I guess it won’t run on a Mac)

I forgot to mention… I am on a PC running Windows 7.

iTunes handles this very easily. When you start copying the CD, just deselect the tracks you don’t want. You do that by unchecking the box between the track number and the title. I just did it to check.

It will then just copy the track you want. You might end up with the very first track being copied, but you can delete that from iTunes if you don’t want it.

For importing mp3 files I have found it’s better to use media player and then import them into itunes if you need to. You’re not married to itunes this way.

Thank you all for your answers, but I’m confused. Some of you talk about “copying”, but remember, I’m starting out with tracks that are in audio CD format. I understand that I need to convert them to mp3 first. It’s this conversion step (which I believe is called “ripping”) that I’m talking about. It seems that iTunes and Roxio all require me to rip the entire CD first. After that, yes, I have individual mp3 files and I can select singly the one I want to “import”.

iTunes will rip to MP3. The default is AAC which is substantially better and by now should be supported everywhere. But if you want MP3 it is just a few clicks away in iTunes and has been for over a decade.

Once they are in the MP3 format they are ripped. You are done. Just delete the ones you no longer want. There is no second step for ripping.

Thank you, @johnpowell.
Understood. But I want to rip just one track, not the entire CD, and then have to delete the tracks I don’t want. The deleting takes no time at all, but it’s the ripping/importing that take time. My CDs often have 20 tracks or more.

@2davidc8 Read my earlier post, just rip the track you want. “Copying” is used to mean the same thing as “ripping”.

OK, @johnpowell and @zenvelo. My confusion was due to the fact that iTunes can play audio CD cuts directly, with no conversion. Didn’t know that “importing” and “copying” (the term depending on the software used), both mean conversion. Thanks.

If you’re not getting a pop-up asking if you want to import the whole CD, click on Import Settings at the bottom of the screen. You should have the ability to deselect an “Import All” option (can’t remember the wording). This means that when you load the CD, you can deselect all the songs you don’t want, then tell it to import. So you don’t have to delete anything.

But of course, this means that you have to tell it to import a CD every time you load one into the drive. Make whatever choice annoys you less.