5 Ways to copy music OFF your iPod (Windows / Mac OS X)
March 9, 2007
So, you’ve got music on your iPod that you don’t have on your computer?
It doesn’t matter how you got in this predicament — maybe you’ve lost a hard drive (or an entire computer), or you’ve accidently deleted just a little too much, and for one reason or another, you don’t have the original source of the music.
If any of that sounds familiar, the time to fix it is now — before you lose your iPod (and your music), or iTunes manages to get set to automatically sync your entire library (its default state, if you have to re-install it) and starts deleting all of the songs it doesn’t know about.
Unfortunately, the standard tool for transferring music between your iPod and your computer (iTunes) is one-way — it’ll put music (or videos, etc.) onto your iPod, but it won’t retrieve it back. Why? Uncle Steve wants it that way, I suppose.
The good news is that there are several ways around this, for both Mac and Windows users, ranging from free to cheap ($30 or so).
Method 1: Windows – Free, Down & Dirty
Unusually enough, this is one place Windows users have an advantage over Mac users. If you have a Windows formatted iPod, Windows actually treats it as a removable drive, and you can go in and copy the files off if you know where to look.
Here’s how:
- Connect your iPod — Warning! if iTunes loads when you plug in your iPod, and is set to automatically sync your entire library (erasing your iPod), you MUST stop it — hit the little “X” in the upper right hand corner of the window.
- Open your iPod — It should show up on “My Computer” as a “Mobile Device”; right click and choose “Explore”. Alternatively, go to the Control Panel, Portable Media Devices, and double-click your iPod.
- Unhide the files — By default, Windows hides hidden files and folders (thus the name). Go to Options (in the Tools menu), and on the View tab, check “Show Hidden Files and Folders”.
- Find the Music — The music is stored (in current iPods) in the directory “\iPod_Control\Music”. This may have a lot of odd looking stuff in it — it doesn’t matter; select everything and drag and drop them to a folder on your hard drive.
- Configure iTunes — Go into iTunes Preferences, and under the Advanced tab, check “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to the library” (settings move around a bit between versions of iTunes, but these settings will be there somewhere).
- Add Your Files — In iTunes, select File, Add Folder to Library, and select the folder where you copied the files from your iPod. Alternatively, just drag and drop this folder onto iTunes
Once you’ve done that, iTunes should sort out the files from the iPod folder structure, put the artist and album information back from the ID3 tags in the music files, and reorganize the whole thing in the iTunes library folder.
The one caveat with this is that what you won’t get back is any “metadata” that isn’t stored in the files themselves, such as ratings, play counts, last played and modified information, etc.
It’s also very difficult to select individual files or groups of files doing this, as it’s not terribly obvious which file is which just looking at them in the way the iPod stores them.
Last but not least, I’ve never seen (nor read about) this trick being tried with any of the “new” iTunes data types, such as pictures, video, games, etc., so I don’t know how well it would work to retrieve that information, nor whether this will retrieve purchases from iTunes Music Store intact.
Method 2: Windows – Anapod CopyGear
Red Chair Software makes a program called Anapod CopyGear which will retrieve pretty much everything from your iPod, including all of the metadata, videos, TV programs, pictures, iTunes Music Store and Audible purchases, etc., all intact.
It’ll even let you select which files to transfer (but it would be wrong to use this to snag a couple of files from your buddy’s iPod).
The downside is that it isn’t quite free — there is a free trial version that will let you retrieve up to 100 items (which you could probably use several times if you’ve just got a few hundred things to retrieve), but if you want to do the whole thing, you’ll need to purchase Anapod Explorer, their full product for managing your iPod outside of iTunes; this comes complete with a licensed copy of CopyGear.
This runs between $20 and $30, depending on which version of the iPod you want to use it with (the $30 version works with all of them).
Method 3: Mac OS X – iPodDisk (free)
As mentioned above, copying files from an iPod is one of those unusual circumstances where things are actually a little simpler on the PC. The Mac recognizes an iPod as an iPod, and masks the ability to open it up like an external disk. Of course, it can be done, but it takes a little fiddling.
Fortunately, short of getting your hands dirty, there are some pretty workable freeware alternatives.
iPodDisk is an elegant little free (as in beer) utility that opens your iPod up in Finder just like was a normal drive.
Unlike opening an iPod in Windows, iPodDisk turns all of the odd file structures into an easy-to-navigate layout that lets you sort down through your artists, albums, playlists, etc. — drag whatever you want off and put it in your iTunes.
It’ll even open a Windows-formatted iPod just fine — which makes this a rather convenient way to get from a Windows iPod to a Mac formatted one (drag all of the files out with iPodDisk, reinitialize the iPod with the Mac iPod Updater, load the files into iTunes and let it stick them back on your iPod.
iPodDisk is a Power PC program, but it works fine on Intel Macs (at least it does on mine), and it supports all current iPods.
Method 4: Mac OS X – Expod (free)
Expod is a simple, free (open source even) utility that opens your iPod and lets you select songs to extract. Once you’ve selected them, you can tell it where to copy them to on your Mac, and even specify how you want the filenames created.
Expod is a Universal Binary (works on Power PC and Intel Macs both), and requires OS X 10.4 (Tiger), although it’s been reported to work under some versions of 10.3.
Method 5: Mac OS X – Anapod CopyGear
The same Anapod CopyGear mentioned above for Windows is also sold for Mac.
This has the same feature set as the Windows version, but is only $15 (since it doesn’t come with Anapod Explorer).
CopyGear for the Mac is a Universal Binary, and runs in OS X 10.2 and up.
Summary
So there you have it — no more excuses for not having your iPod music on your computer.
If something tragic happens to your iPod (such as this sad tale of woe from Susi at Shiny Shiny), and you don’t have a backup, then don’t be the one to say that we didn’t warn you..
Popularity: 100% [?]
Method 1 is copied from here:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/799766/ipod_hack_how_to_rip_locked_audio/
The link you indicate is a video demonstrating how to do what I suggest in Method 1.
It’s a handy demonstration (thanks for sharing it!), but that doesn’t suggest that this article was copied from the video you link — particularly since Metacafe shows that it was posted on Sep. 3 2007, and I wrote this in March of 2007.
Does anyone else have any good tricks to share for snagging music off of an iPod?
Another application for Macs: Senuti, it’s free, and it looks almost identical to iTunes. Pick and choose what songs you want to bring back, and it tells you which ones are already in your computer.
Excellent find, Luke! Thanks!!
Senuti looks like a great pick for OS X users — anybody interested can grab it here — Senuti.
A great program for Windows(might work with mac’s too, don’t have one so i’m not sure) Its called Floola.
Google it, its an .exe (yes its clean)
Its great for grabbing the music off your iPod, and some other nice things too
Warning: This program is very buggy!
Have fun
Thanks Virgul!
Floola looks more like an “ipod management program” than a standalone “go get my music” thing, but apparently it does that too, for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s free, which might still be too expensive if it’s as buggy as you say…
You can find it here – Floola.
Check out iDump
http://www.download.com/iDump/3000-2169_4-10407429.html
Thanks Bill.
iRepo is the best shareware program for Windows I’ve seen and it’s very easy to manage what you recover and organize it. Highly recommended!!
Podutil is a good one for this. It’s free (but they do ask for a donation). I did the job with it on my iPod and it worked beautifully
Thanks guys!
It looks like PodUtil has been replaced by Music Rescue. Both it and iRepo are available for Windows or Mac — iRepo runs $12, and Music Rescue costs £10, or just under $20 US at current exchange rates.
uhmm i was really happy to stumble on this web page since my old laptop went bricks when windows would no longer open. i lost everything stored on their like my music, but however i have them on my ipod. i recently got a new laptop and wanted the music of my ipod. i read the intructions but i have a windows vista system and they dont seem to have the menu tool operator so i was wondering if anyone knew how i can get the music of my ipod through vista?
Hi Vanessa;
Sorry to hear about the lost laptop! Unfortunately, I’ve had very little time on deck with Vista, so I don’t really have any suggestions, other than you may want to check some of the Windows tools listed here and see if they explicitly say they’ll run on Vista.
How about it, folks? Can anyone chime in with some help for Vanessa?
i was wondering if the current version (at least up to 7.6.2.9 or something) has that and if it does, is it consolidate library?
nvm, found it
There’s also a program named Sharepod. Very useful
Thanks Tory! Another freebie for Windows users – Sharepod
You forgot about Senuti (Mac only) and iDump (Mac and Win, I think)
Sharepod is another program that is very lightweight and works wonders!! it has saved me many times and its free!! http://www.getsharepod.com/
in my opinion, the easiest way is to use Mediamonkey.
You can simply select what you want, copy, paste, auto-oranize, it’s done…Mediamonkey IS the best program for music AND ipod music management.
Have you never heard of iDump?
http://www.download.com/iDump/3000-2169_4-10407429.html?tag=lst-3&cdlPid=10819693
Come on guys, it’s easier than that.
ben x
Ben Greenes last blog post..Old School…FTW!
just get iDump for windows, maybe Mac aswell i dont know!
for windows
my favorite is called PoddoX.
http://www.poddox.com/
easy to use. no installation necessary.
[...] ?????5 Ways to copy music OFF your iPod (Windows / Mac OS X) [...]
Thanks for all this info. Really glad I stumbled on your site. Keep up the good work. Gabrielle
Thanks for the explanations. However my problem is still unresolved. My ipod is Mac formatted and my new pc runs on windows. I can’t seem to get the right program to have my pc read the ipod and retrieve the files. Any hints?
[...] iPodDisk This is the Mac version of Senuti If you’re using and inferior Windows machine have look HERE Have [...]
First one works GREAT Takes A Bit Of Time But Turnes Out Good. 10/10
Quote (hags)
“for windows
my favorite is called PoddoX.
http://www.poddox.com/
easy to use. no installation necessary.”
This is the best, take 1 sec to download, yes it is clean and it is the easiest software i have used.
VERY RECOMENDED
Woody
I’m just wondering, I haven’t tried this software yet, but wonder if it can be used to take off all my songs in itunes and keep them on my ipod. I want to keep my songs but not on my hd.
So guys … I want to copy my music from my iPod to my mac…or windows … doesn’t matter!!!
I read all the comments but no one really says that this is the best.. and most secure…
What would you guys recommend me?
Please help
thanks
aye man that crap had me cutting sick at my comp… that was simple as…
1st one is simple as juno
oh my gosh. thank you soooomuch man i love you…i was trying to figure out how to put new songs on a new mp3 player i got but we got rid of our old computer which had all my songs on it and some of them i cant get back…you are my hero..thank you sooo much again
Thank you so much. I was able to retrieve the songs from my Ipod using the 1st method. It was free, easy and woderful. Windows users don’t buy the software just use this method, it really works. Thanks again.
how can i get my songs off my ipod that was synced to my mac thats broke and doesnt work no more, i dont wont to buy a mac again just to get these song ,i only have a windows lappy ??????
Is there a way to transfer between platforms? I had an external drive (mac-formatted) that was attached to a G4 (with no CD-writer) and was using that as my music storage. The G4 went sour; I still have the music on the external and my ipod but can’t seem to gain access through my Windows laptop. Is there a way to get around formatting or restoring to simply save my purchased music? The ipod is recognized when attached to my laptop but I have to format or restore to go further, even using method 1. The external HD appears in device manager but I have no true access to it. Help!
where is the option for view hidden files on a vista computer?
write back
thanks.
Sharepod is free and it works great .
Hey, there is another tip you could add for the windows/free technique mentioned in #1, which is that you CAN actually see the artists/albums/tracks in windows by simply adding those fields to the directory listing.
So in windows explorer. right click the column header area (where you normally see, Name, Size, Type, DateModified etc), and then you’ll see entries for Artist, Title, Album Title. If you enable these, it actually displays those fields from the mp3 tags and then you can click each column header to sort by album/artist etc and get only what you want.
Oh and I should add to my last comment, you only see these headers when you are in ‘Details View’ which can be turned on in the View menu.
so i have a mac with all of my music on it and also on my ipod but want to put it onto a windows computer and am wondering if there is a way to do that without restoring it.
thank you so much for finding a way to move music from my ipod to my computer i have been trying to find a way forever and this is finally it. i highly recomend this to other people that are wanting to move music from their ipod to their computer
why can’t I find a version of ipoddisk that works on OSX 10.3.9 anywhere???
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! i recently got a new hard drive and EVERYTHING was wiped… iv been trying to find a free alternative to retrieve all my songs from my ipod to my computer =] YAY
xx
iCeBarBiees last blog post..The Empire Strikes Crackers
Thank you, you saved my life without this I would have lost, like 7 years of music.
Thanks, Logan mon
My favorite would have to be Music Rescue, it works on Mac and Windows, and has a free trial version, I’ve used it for at least a year.
Just use Winamp to add or remove music from your ipod, works great for me
You are a legend man!! I used no. 1… worked like a charm!
Was especially effective as I downloaded multiple programs b4 that did not work for PIE!!!!
Thanks a lot! really appreciated! (it’s also nice that it’s legal!!)
in method 1, you can press alt-ctrl-delete (if you’re using windows) and end ‘ipod process’ before you connect your ipod. This will stop itunes from opening when you connect it.
or instead of crappy ass itunes you could just use SharePod, It has a button to copy all your music to the computer, and to put music onto your Ipod..WAYYY easier than Itunes, and its freeeeee =)
I use WinAmp to upload music from iPods to my computer.
You simply connect the iPod and then WinAmp will recognize it as a “portable” device. Al contents can then be imported. Really slick, and free.
thank you! u helped me save my files
Thank you – just used method 1 to transfer my music from ipod to itunes. Took me a while to get it sussed though – I needed to “un-hide” and “un-read only” the folders which the music was in – “show hidden files and folders” on its own didn’t work after they had been transferred to the new folder as (presumably) itunes couldn’t see them.
http://www.getsharepod.com/
this is also a very good FREE program that you install onto your ipod and it can backup your entire ipod or you can just copy a couple. Share this programs with your friends so they can backup their stuff too (
)
try sharepod too. it’s easy.
http://www.getsharepod.com/
There is a free method to copy all music by file type from the terminal on your Mac and you don’t need to install any applications. I know it is kind of geekie but some people want the challenge or just want to backup music collections because a hard drive went bad, etc.
Here is a geek way to deal with it, first connect your iPod to your Macintosh:
1. open up the terminal and change to the root drectory of the iPod. It will be at /Volumes/the_name_of_our_iPod. Mine is called Richards iPod. So I issued this command:
$ cd /Volumes/Richards\ iPod
2. Next make a folder callled mp3s (or whatever you want) on your Desktop
3. Run this command from the Terminal:
$ find . -name *mp3 -exec cp {} /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/Richard/Desktop/mp3s/ \;
substitute your username for “Richard” and the name of the folder you made in step for mp3s.
The files will still be renamed to things like QUCD.mp3 but at least you have them.
Winamp is the best (at least for windows). When you connect your iPod to your computer, and open winamp, it automaticly add your iPod to “removable devices” in “media library”, then you just select what you want to copy to your computer, right click, and “copy to local media”. You’ll find your music in my documents\my music, and maybe another subfolder. And, it automaticly corrects filenames. it rocks.
If this additional step hasn’t been added, I would add it. Make sure that the files you save into on your hard drive are unhidden after the transfer. iTunes won’t pick them up and import them if the files are still hidden on your drive.
Thanks, Apple made the Ipod music recovery too complicated. Thanks for letting us know how to get around this.
Okay this looks like a good thing I can use. But alright I am trying to do Method 1: So i am on number 2. and i am at the icon “my computer” but i can not find this icon Mobile Device” can anyone please e-mail me where it is.. thanks
I can recommend poddox (http://www.poddox.com/). It’s free and not complicated, what more could you want? Btw. I didn’t manage to un-hide files (I use Vista), so if anyone knows, please tell
If you have Vista, there is no ‘tools’ page.
I recommend Music Rescue; it’s super easy and free!
to unhide files in vista, go to the control panel –> “appearance and personalization” –> “show hidden files and folders” (under the folder options heading). there’s a radio button in the menu that pops up.
after that, it works the same as described in the post.
I was also using an external harddive to store all my music. It was attached to an old ibook so my ipod was mac formatted, i suppose. I leant my hard drive to a friend who attached it to her pc and she had no trouble transfering the files to her hard drive for her ipod. She said her pc immediately recognized new hardware and she was able to copy all the files and then put them on herhard diirve and then ipod. She returned my hard drive and all my files were still there. I then tried to do the same after purchasing a pc laptop but it wouldn’t recognize the hard drive. Long story short, I lost all the files on the hard drive after monkeying around with it (partitioning, reformatting, who knows what?!?) So now I only have the music on my ipod and need to get it on the pc. When I attach the ipod to the pc via USB it asks me to reformat for windows. I know that is a bad idea…any advice? I saw others had similar questions but didn’t see answers.
Thanks to the people recommending SharePod. It worked great. I had done option #1 a previous time but Sharepod worked like a charm.
http://www.getsharepod.com
Have music on a mac formatted ipod…how do i transfer it to windows itunes on a pc ?
you saved my sanity! I was going crazy trying to find a way to transfer from ipod to new computer without losing stuff! thanks so much!
The first option worked so well with my old iPod mini…thank you SO much! I am soooo glad I didn’t have to bother with a program or anything.
i am writing this in response to Vennessa’s request a long time ago, but i just had almost the exact same thing happen to me with my computer and ipod. If anyone has windows vista you have to click the ORGANIZE button then go down to LAYOUT option and click the MENU BAR option. This shows the TOOLS button, which you click then go to FOLDER OPTIONS and click it. This will then pull up a window. Click the VIEW tab and go down to the HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS part and simply cllick SHOW THE HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS. This should bridge the gap for everyone that has Vista and is trying to follow the instructions from Step 1
I have a bit of a problem and I’m not too brainy in these areas :]
I started out with a shuffle, the huge type of shuffle, and it was fine for a year or two, then I got a new nano, which I love. My sister is at college so when buying her lap top, she got an ipod touch. She already has one so I got it.
I have one computer, and this is not working out. The shuffle isn’t working anyway, but I’m still having problems with my two ipods. My sister’s ipod is on our other computer and her lap top, and my dad’s video ipod is on his two laptops.
My mom isn’t very good in the whole computer world, but she wants to use my nano when she works out, which is fine, if I could update the dang thing! (Problem 1)
Recently, I hooked up my ipod touch and it gave me a choice of something like ‘delete songs and sync’ or ‘transfer purchases to library’ serious, which sounds better? It wouldn’t let me do anything so I picked transfer and bam! I have only 20 purchased songs left. None. Gone. Zip. I’m kinda freaking out so I was looking everywhere and found here! (Problem 2)
I tried your first way, and I got to My Computer, but where is ‘Mobile Device’? My dad won’t let me download anything, especially if its buggy but I really need help.
Sorry if I wrote too much, but I’m leaving tonight for skiing so I’d love the help by then.
Thank you thank you thank you!!!
and until I’ll try some of the other ways you guys have posted :]
I know this question has been asked already but i still can’t see the answer…will someone PLEASE!!! help me transfer my songs from a mac formatted ipod to a windows computer! i do not want to loose all my songs, but i can’t find anything that will transfer my songs over!
well if i do option one will the ipod lose all the music on it……like so if i transfer it will there then be music on my computer and ipod or what…. plz help thanks
i started reading about ipoddisk and didn’t like what i read. It seems that a lot of people are having problems with it, and the creator doesn’t seem too confident either. i decided to try expod with OS X 10.5.6. and am very happy. It was quick and easy and i had no problems. great software!
all i had to do was extract the songs, say where to store them, and the import them to my itunes and that was it.
exactly what i needed.
my friend gave me her ipod and so it is mac formatted but i have a pc. I want to keep all of her music but then also add mine, but its saying i have to restore the ipod to be able to add my songs, and i know that will wipe all of her music off it.
im not clear on which of the methods i should use
help
Thanks a Million.
i used your “down and dirty (free) option”. it worked. granted i have some work to do to sort it all out, but
THANKS – it worked great.
I am trying to copy my Ipod library to Itunes on a PC. I read the article (http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/5-ways-to-copy-music-off-your-ipod-windows-mac-os-x/) and Method 1: Windows – Free, Down & Dirty seemed to be exactly what I needed. I did what it said and the only problem is where it instructed: “Add Your Files — In iTunes, select File, Add Folder to Library, and select the folder where you copied the files from your iPod. Alternatively, just drag and drop this folder onto iTunes” I was not able to add the entire folder. I tried dragging and dropping – still nothign appeared in my Itunes. When I went into one number (that is the way the song groupings are displayed) and chose all songs in that group, it did import the FILE, not the folder. But it would take me a very long time to do this for each grouping.
Is this a simple fix to allow me to add the folder vs. the file?
Thanks!
Method 1 worked for me. It was a free, easy and quick solution. Thank you!
Just got poddox and it works like a beautiful charm. Thanks for all the help :] Moved an album in less than 5 seconds.
Okay it DOES work on vista (method 1)
follow steps 1 and 2 normally. for step three, click the folder, organize, folder options and then click show hidden. and then follow the rest normally@
I was able to take my movies using the dirty method in the same way with my music. It was in an audio format, but when I double clicked it, it opened as a movie
Hi guys,
I downloaded CopyTrans from this website:
http://www.copytrans.net
It transferred songs and videos back to my iTunes in no time. I even retrieved my ratings, playlists and podcasts subscriptions!
I tried method 1, I followed all the directions, but iTunes still isn’t ’seeing’ my music.
Any sugguestions?
Having a bit of a problem with this… tried method one and all was going good, I was thinking ‘happy days I don’t have to try and find all that music again’ but when i went to add the folders to my library nothing happened. They haven’t shown up in my ipod library at all, its all hugely confusing!!
Any suggestions??
Ref Method 1 – Small Tip – When I copied the folders to iTunes library, they were “invisible”, so right click on the folder, then select properties, and on the General tab, blank out “Read only” and “Hidden”. The folders can then be identified by iTunes.
After this you must open iTunes and select “Add folder to library”, and go to your iTunes library, click the folders (one at a time) , and the files will be transerred from their unusual format into music files with the album netwrok etc.
Dude thank u so much my last comp fryed and i decided to get a mac and could not get my 800 and something songs to my mac from my ipod. i looked for like 2 days to find a free (not trial) program to get the job done. came across this page and U ROCK man your awsome, ipod disk worked like a charm. thank u so much for the advice.
Thank you so much for this info. My external drive just crashed. I lost 50 gigs of video footage, 30 gigs of music and 10 gigs of photographs. I’m a digital artist and this was the equivalent to someones house burning down (well, maybe not that serious, but it freakin’ hurts just as bad). I managed to save what was on my Ipod (4 gigs). Luckily I had my purchased music on there. Anyway… YOU ARE FREAKIN’ AWESOME.
Visit me @ http://im31studios.blogspot.com/
This guide saved me $400 – it worked a charm, with using XP to get the music off the iPod, and Vista to get the music back onto the iPod. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
For Windows user, I suggest iPodRobot iPod to Computer Transfer, can copy music, video, photo and playlist back to iTunes library
@Yayo on June 5th, 2008 9:59 pm
Thanks for the explanations. However my problem is still unresolved. My ipod is Mac formatted and my new pc runs on windows. I can’t seem to get the right program to have my pc read the ipod and retrieve the files. Any hints?
The problem you have is the actual formatting. So you need something that can read hfs+ for you (or to borrow someones mac and copy it off form there.
However a quick google and i cam accross this; http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/index2.html
I’ve not tried it so have know idea if it’s any good.
I’d like to recover only certain files off of my Ipod; is there any way to do this?
Thank you! My old computer had all my music on it, but my husband wanted to add more music to my ipod, because his is trashed. I tried this and it worked, now I have my stuff and could add his as well. This was very helpful; I tried to find info on how to do it on the apple site, but I couldn’t find anything there.
hi,
i have done step one
but theres stll some songs that are coded as
CFPC
BOAH
BRMZ
etc, how do ichange that back to the actual song titles
I have an iPod Touch, and since I have photos on it (and probably even if I didn’t) my computer treats it as a camera. Thus, the Windows “Free, Down and Dirty” method doesn’t work… all it can find is the pictures…
I personally use Cucusoft iPhone/iTouch/iPod to Computer Transfer.
Free download at: http://www.dvd-video-soft.com/ipodconverter/ipod-itouch-iphone-transfer.html
It helps me to transfer my songs/videos/photos from ipod to computer directly and safety.It works well for me.
I use Tansee iPod Copy Pack http://ipod-tool.com/ipod-software/tansee-ipod-copy-pack.html
It has helped me transfer all music, videos and pictures from my iPod back to my computer in simplest steps. More importantly, this won’t overwrite any original files on our iPod. And all song titles are preserved.
I loaded all my cds into ITunes, 3200+ tracks, it took hours. I did this on my lap top. Once done, thinking ITunes had my liberary, I thought to free up some memory and deleted all trcks on my vist music folder. I didn,t laugh.
Thank goodness for SHAREPOD and the above information
Jim
As far as I can tell, there are two free programs for both Windows and Mac that can be very useful when you want to transfer something from your iPod to your PC.
The first one is called Pod to PC, it’s free and you can transfer all kind of files from all iPod models to a PC, you can download Pod to PC here :
http://www.downloadbestsoft.com/Pod-to-PC.html
The second one is called Pod to Mac, it’s free and you can transfer all kind of files from almost all iPod models back to your Mac, you can download Pod to Mac here :
http://www.downloadbestsoft.com/Pod-to-Mac.html
With the mention that the first program, Pod to PC doesn’t need iTunes to transfer files.
We did method 1 on my husbands ipod and it wiped everything off. It appeared as though everything was being tranferred. It took about 15 minutes, but we can’t find the music anywhere. I read a tip up above where it says to right click on the folder and blank out read only and hidden folders….but we can’t even find the folder. I know all the music is sitting there some where…I just don’t know where.
I download a program from here and it works well for me.
http://get-music-from-ipod-to-pc.com-mac.com/
Here is an easy way that many of my friends used to load your songs from iPod back to iTunes. That is to use this iPod-to-iTunes transfer program called iPod 2 iTunes http://www.gutensoft.com/Utilities/iPod-2-iTunes.htm
With it, we can simply Drag and Drop Songs, Playlists or Video from iPod back to iTunes without any data loss. Nomally takes a few seconds.
==MAC iPod==:
I recommend 4Media iPod to Mac Transfer
http://gutensoft.com/Utilities/4Media-iPod-to-Mac-Transfer.html
It can help easily transfer all music, photos, videos, podcast, and TV shows on your iPod back to Mac completely and safely, and add them to your local iTunes library. Also, you can use it to transfer files from iPod to iTunes or from Mac to iPod in a direct way.
Best luck!
Thanks -
I got this to work for the 650 odd songs on my ipod nano 4th gen and windows vista. I found I had to copy the individual files, rather than the folders, but it still only took about 10 minutes. I selected copy file rather than copy folder. When the folder was opened, under “organize” you can select “select all” and then click the “open” button, and over they flew.
You rock! This worked great in Windows! I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get my music off my ipod and back onto my new laptop.
This is great information. Now I know how to pull music off my iPod. For me the biggest concern was having a Mac formatted drive and transferring the music to a PC platform. Kudos on the article.
i have an itouch, and i did the show all hidden files but i cant do the next step im soooo lost someone point to where “”Find the Music — The music is stored (in current iPods) in the directory “\iPod_Control\Music”. “”
i cant find it?
i have vista too by the way
Tried Method 1 but without success. Am I supposed to open iTunes before carrying out Step 5 “Configure iTunes”? Won’t that expose me to an unwanted deletion of everything on my iPod?
To attempt further clarification, I mean open iTunes with iPod still attached to the PC.
Thanks sooo much. I had a 30GB iPod that died, and everyone said it was just “too bad, too sad”. But thanx to this I have my music back! And some songs were irreplaceable originals! Cheers
Except its replaced 1/3 – 1/2 the songs with random letters like VOXK and VATL etc. DOH!! No song titles, no artists :’(
when i try to add the folder to my library nothing happens.
please help.
i can only add them as a file
nvm i figured it out, you have to make them un hidden first.
thanks for all the help!
awesome site.
Hmmm . . . I lost all the music in my itunes library, and used your directions for Windows above to restore it from my ipod. Step by step all went well right up to step 6 where I went into itunes, selected file, add folder to library, and selected the folder where I copied the files from my ipod. But the library screen remains blank. It’s actually dark, not a white background. ?? It’s like it’s not copying the files I pulled from the ipod and saved to my hard drive. I have all the files in My Music, there’s a folder in there called itunes and I dropped all the music in that. Can you offer any thoughts?
Thanks
Mary
Joey,
I’m having the same problem as you experienced. My file isn’t hidden, can you walk me through how you got the files to come into the Library?
Thanks!
These insturctions are for vista users because thats how i did it.
First To find if your ipod is manually managed. Load it up in itunes and select the ipod. It should have some sentances with check boxes next to it. If enable disk use is selected but grey. This way is usful.
1. Once you have done all the ubove go to my computer.
2. Select the organize tab at the top. Go down to the “Folder and Search options”.
3. A new window should come up with three tabs. Select the “View” tab.
4. In the “view” section there should be a box titled advance setting. Look for the hidden files and folders bit. Select the “Show hidden files and folders” sentance. Click apply, and ok.
5. Now on the ipod file section should be a new folder named “iPod Controll”. Select that.
6. Some more folders should come up. Now select the “music” folder.
7. When this opens the will be alot more folders named F00 through to F49 (You may have more or less i assume depending on what ipod you have.)
8. From this, I opened up a new window and went into my music. I created a new file to put all of my music in. You don’t have to create a file you can just put it in that folder.
9. This bit is a bit long… Now go into the folders described in number 7. Select all the music in each folder and you can drag and drop it into your new folder or where ever you new music destination is.
10. The songs have different song titles, and still im not sure how to automatically change them. Although When you add the folder to itunes the song titles come up. Also if you want to add them to windows media player just drag and drop them to it and the song titles should come up.
I hope this helps you =]
ps: credit should be given to (unknown)…..the person did not leave his/her name…..but yeah…..It worked for me with Vista….so……I re-posted it…later!
I think you forget to add one thing after finding the files… You have to change the Folder andmake it visible, if it stays as a hidden folder you won’t be able to copy the folders to the itunes library