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..
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
There is the tutorial that how to transfer music/movie from iPod to computer, iPod to iTunes, iPod to iPod, iPod to iPhone, iPod to iTouch, iPhone to iTouch, etc.
http://www.ipod-to-pc.net/copy-files-from-ipod-to-pc.html
Sharepod was AMAZING!!!!! I was trying to do the file transfer listed above and kept running into stumbling blocks along the way. Sharepod took about 2 min to download and then everything was placed right back into iTunes perfectly! I could not have been happier!
is it the same for itouch
After trying lots of iPod backup software, I found this iPod rip is powerful.
http://ipod-tool.com/ipod-software/joboshare-ipod-rip.html
Why? It supports iPod to PC transfer, iPod to iTunes transfer as well as PC to iPod transfer. Files transferred include music, videos, playlists, photos, podcasts and TV Shows etc. All formats compatible with iPod are supported
Awesome awesome awesome. you saved my life…. and alot of time!!!!
Thankyou!!!!
:):)
.-= Ashley´s last blog ..WS: Trip to FeilongShan =-.
the problem is my ipod doesn’t come up as a mobile device
it comes up as a camera/scanner
can someone help me out?
You need to enable iPod Disk Mode
I just got an ipod and my friend uploaded a heap of music on there. I wanted to put on more and put some on my laptop but I have windows vista and the ipod is mac formatted. I don’t want to lose the music on the ipod. Is there anyway to change my ipod to windows formatted without losing all the music I have on there???
Please help!
thanks,
grace
hi, i have an ipod that’s a windows format and i would like to transfer the music from this ipod to my macbook. the first time i loaded the ipod it worked, but i took a break from my computer and closed it. as i opened it again, in itunes it gives me a message saying “iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPod” and as i load senuti it doesn’t read the ipod either. =/ please help
Question…I tried method 1, and it did retrieve quite a bit of music off my iPod and onto my computer. However, about half of my song files are missing. From what I can piece together, it was able to retrieve any music that I had put into iTunes on this computer specifically (but had subsequently deleted), but all the music that I had put on my iPod from my old computers wasn’t retrieved. Any ideas as to why that might have happened or how to fix it? Thanks!
i prefer using Aniosoft iBackup to transfer comment from iPod to iTunes and PC as well. It enables you to transfer iPod’s music and other content to any storage device and iTunes as well. And both the backup in the storage device can be recovered and restored with no any change and no any risk.And the data in the iTunes is quite in accord with the iPod’s data including its playlists,rating and etc.
Good luck to you.
[...] iPod Touch – 5 Ways by Metaphoric [...]
I have a Mac at home where all my music resides, and I want to duplicate my library to my work PC. Whenever I plug my iPod into my work computer it whines about wanting to reformat. Anyone know of a program that will let me move my music without reformatting?
How do I get music from a Mac formatted I-pod onto a windows formatted PC?
Method 1 worked a treat!
Just make sure that you have checked each folder (within your new music folder on your hard drive) as they need to be ‘visible’ to be seen by itunes.
Tis simple…doulbe click on new music folder…right click on each folder…properties…in the ‘attributes’ section…uncheck ‘hidden’…apply…ok…done!
Do this to them all and follow the remainder of instructions!
Many Ta’s and Smiles to Chuck!!!
Does anyone know how to transfer an IPod that is Mac based, to an Ipod that is windows based?
Thanks
So, for any Vista users, because Windows decided to make everything “easier,” aka more complicated, to find the Options menu in my compter for method one, press the Alt key. It will then display the menu bar that everyone is used to seeing.
For everyone looking for a utility that will let you get music off a Mac iPod and onto a PC iPod, I just did this using a program called “Xplay”. It is free to try and it quickly and easily moved 13,000 songs from my Mac iPod to an external HDD, and then I moved the songs to a PC iPod. It worked so well that I bought a legal copy for $30–cheap money for giving me all that music.
I used to use senuti. It’s great and easy to navigate, but i just went on with my new computer and unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s free anymore. just a heads up. But they do offer a trial, up to 1000 songs and 30 days i think.
Ok, I am trying 1 with my 8gb iPhone 3g and when I open it as an external device, it is picking it up as a camera. What’s up with that?
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..Threadless Tshirt Giveaway at jaypeeonline.net =-.
So my ipod is synced with a pc but i have just purchased a mac and was wondering if there is a way to get my music from my ipod to my mac. Thanks
ipoddisk doesnt work with Snow Leopard 10.6
Anyone trying to use method opne you may have to search “music” and go to advanced search and enable hidden files then go into properties of “music” and unselect hide this file (or what ever) hope that helps as i just had to do that
Perhaps this is a new Itunes feature, but my computer just crashed and some items I had purchased were not backed up, but were on the ipod. After installing itunes and connecting the ipod, I saw a message that “some purchased items were found on the ipod, but not in the itunes library” It then asked whether or not I wanted to update my PC library with the purchased items. Everything seemed to come back without any problems.
That worked perfect. Thanks!
Thank you very much. The tip about the details was helpful too, as it saved me from having to rename them in the folder. I was getting very frustrated until I found this site. In my frustration, I forgot that windows doesn’t recognize the ipods as ipods. Windows users use method # 1, it’s easy, clean, and free!!
Yay!! Thank you so much! this helped a bunch!
omg thank you thank you thank you! you helped me so much with your tip #1. thats just what i needed. thanks
expod worked perfectly with snow leopard – luckily I still have iTunes 8!
My favorite would isMusic Rescue work on both
Hello, my name is Sarah.
I own an iMac G4 and an iPod touch.
Recently I had the misfortune of deleting all saved files from my computer.
Luckily, my music and movies were saved on my iPod.
Most of the music, however, came from CDs and not iTunes, so I fear syncing it and transferring the purchased files.
I’ve tried many different programs that I downloaded off of the internet.
They either limited how much I could transfer, or they would crash as soon as I tried to run the program.
I am confused, angry, and desperate.
Someone please provide me with a free program that can actually work for me
Thank you!
I am very upset. I followed your one of you “5 ways to copy music off your Ipod” by using method 1. It worked great but then when I decided to sync my Ipod it lost everything! Why do you not warn people about this?? What is the point of this method if you can never ever sync your Ipod again after this? If there is a way you can fix this then please email me because you sure do not have it listed on your page. I lost 368 songs!!!!
Just a big THANKS to, I think, B-rock. I lost all my music (10G) on the computer and then the rely-on-holier-than-thou backup system failed too!!! But I had everything on the IPOD and babied it until I could find out how to recover. I dug and dug and found the “Method 1 Windows – free, down and dirty. Thanks. Music is a little mixed up and playlists didn’t come across but I got all my music back into iTunes. Now I’ll back it up and back it up also on a large jump drive. Never is this going to happen again! I was physically ill when I lost my music in itunes. Of course, I lost soooo much more data on the computer. I can’t and won’t rely on a back up system again – disks, jump drives, etc. THANKS again. I just read Roz’s comments and hope I don’t have a problem when I go to hook up and sync. Will check back to see any replies and/or how tos.
Expod works great with OS X 10.5.8 and Ipod video. Thanks
With Method 1, I got all the music off the ipod, and onto my computer, but cant get the folders to go into Itunes…I’ve tried dragging and dropping, and also the add file to library, any other suggestions? Thanks
Meg,
I ran into exactly the same problem. I could not add the folder into iTunes. However, if you follow the same directions, but go into “add file to library” instead of “add folder to library”, then open each folder (I had 13 folders with 10-30 individual files in each) and then select each file, they went into iTunes that way. I did not have to do the files individually, but could select multiple files at one time. Also, iTunes will tell you it is adding files in the window at the top, so if you keep track of how many you select, you can tell if you got them all. I did an average of 6-12 at a time. It also did not seem to duplicate files if I selected them twice. When I got done, I had the same number of songs as I have in my iPod. I did lose some cover art, b/c you have to go back and get artwork on iTunes when you are done (only my purchased cover art came back on its own). This was a long, tedious process, but not as long as ripping all the music off of the CDs again. I have not yet hooked my iPod back up, so don’t know if I will run into the same problems as Roz. I’m a little scared now. Hope this helps!
This worked great for Windows but now I want to pull the music with the correct files name from iTunes and put it into a folder on my hard drive with the correct namesinstead of ABCD.
Sounds like great advice here. Thanks.
I foolishly plugged an iPod into my computer to listen to some tunes through the speaker. I don’t have iTunes. But instead of tunes, I pooched the iPod so that all the files ended up in the “Other” folder (I think as the music folder is empty but the Other folder has 4.8 GB in it). To make matters worse, the computer that originated the songs was replaced so the iPod can’t be reformatted/synced to recover it’s songs. (I know, always have a backup.) Just wondering if Method One will work to retrieve these files? Anyone have insight into what happened?
Is iTunes really this proprietary and dangerous to your music? Why do people put up with this?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
-steve-
[...] October 15, 2009 by chimac Had a problem with syncing your iPod or it won’t connect anymore. Try one of these methods to get your music back! 5 Ways to copy music OFF your iPod (Windows / Mac OS X) | Metaphoric Labs [...]
@Tom tom @ yayo @ Everyone else with the “Mac-formatted Ipod/ Windows based PC/ Reformatting issue
HFS Explorer works.
You just lose song title info. i.e. All songs when you extract them from the iPod will be named AGHD and WYUW. Extraction of the .m4a and .mp3 files might take a while too, but it can be done.
http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/index2.html
I used method one and it worked great, so thanks, but does that mean I have to rename every song in my library (since they’re just a combination of letters)? It wasn’t very clear. Thank you very much!
i have tried EVERYTHING i could find and think of to get my songs from my old computer to my new computer and nothing has worked. now i am beginning to think it has something to do with Windows 7. any ideas?
.-= Suzanne´s last blog ..Threadless Tshirt Giveaway at jaypeeonline.net =-.
Hey.
I have about 10gs of music that I’m trying to copy from my old 30g and get on my laptop. Big issue, no program seems to run correctly.
At first I tried copying the songs with no program, which to anyone who asks, it DOES work with Vista. It’s slightly more confusing but it is possible to un-hide the files and get them off. Except it re-names songs like gsyt^%652g6^ -_-. Sorry, not re-naming every single song.
I’ve been trying to use iDump, and atfirst it was running great except after the first two hundred songs it froze, and shut down.
I’ve been just uploading about ten songs at a time and can’t get past a certain song. No matter how hard I try.
I tried downloading some things suggested here such as sharepod, expod, irepo.
iRepo wont start. It freezes.
Sharepod wont start.
I need one that works properly, and will be able to last while downloading largeee amounts of music. Someone help?
[...] and I’m all about convience. You can read how to get your music off your ipod for free here. As far as for the legality of these types of programs, I don’t see any issues with them. We [...]
Moving from PC to Mac. Guys, i need help transferring my Windows-formatted iPod files to a mac. From discussions it appears “downloadbestsoft.com/pod-to-mac.html is the best option.
Please advise…
thank you so much for this! Also by the way for future reference, sometimes (for the first method & the last step) it might not work if you just drag the folder down to the itunes, so you should add up there that you might have to open up the folder, select all the music and drag it down to your itunes.
i want to be able to copy my friends ipod collection onto itunes on my mac. and then copy it to my ipod. with out losing any of my music on my mac or ipod. the methods above only talk about copying from your own ipod. for obvious reasons im sure.
Since we have so many files in our ipod from other places than itunes, so i think this application is very necessary when we need to backup files with our ipod.
Omg you helped me so much with a problem I had for 3 years! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
My question is how do you use Anapod CopyGear? cause i got the trial version but it doesnt show me how???
Expod worked just like what I had expected. Great product! Thanks for saving all the music I stored on my old iPod.. grrrr Apple! for giving me the trouble..
Thanks so much for posting this. I found my son’s old 3rd gen nano in the bottom of a drawer yesterday with nearly 400 purchased songs on it and I wasn’t able to transfer them via iTunes. I used your method number one and within 3 minutes had all of the songs transferred AND the title/artist names intact!!!
wow thanks man, lol right now copying songs off ipod to hard driver (43 Minuts Remaining) hopefully it works, i’ve tried stuff like YAMIPOD, and IPOD 2 IPOD they are not bad thos yam takes a lil while and gets complicated, ipod to ipod is the best BUT BUT BUT its 65$…..ftw
thank you….I had to copy it file by file but that is fine i only had 4g nano. and I am upgrading to a 16g nano with a new laptop and this saved my bacon!
Pod to Mac worked perfectly for me…and its free.
“Aquataz on November 23rd, 2009 12:07 pm
Moving from PC to Mac. Guys, i need help transferring my Windows-formatted iPod files to a mac. From discussions it appears “downloadbestsoft.com/pod-to-mac.html is the best option.
Please advise…”
I just did that very thing. Download a program called Pod to Mac from c-net, it’s free and it works.
prevously I had an mac laptop, but now using windows. My iPod is in mac format and want to convert to windows. When I connect iPod it tells me I need to format for windows & feel I will lose everything.
Is there an easy way to get this onto my computer in windows without losing all my music.
Hello there, as long as your songs are still on your iPod, you can get them back to your computer and iTunes easily.
This is how I did. I used MediaWidget to move all library files from my iPod onto my computer and iTunes http://www.gutensoft.com/Utilities/MediaWidget.htm
It can transfer all iPod content to the iTunes on your computer, including iPod music, movies, playlists, videos, podcasts, ratings, last played, and more. It’s such a powerful one that many friends around me have used it for a long time. Easy and safe.
Now all files are on your computer and iTunes, you can sync your iPod with it smoothly without deleting any files.
Just free download it to try.
For more iPod support information you can also go to http://www.apple.com/support/
Hi, I’ve just got a new laptop with windows 7 but I’m having real trouble getting my music back. I’ve always used Music Rescue in the past but it keeps getting stuck. I’m extremely skint at the minute (I’m in my last year of school so saving up for holidays/gap year/uni) so ideally I’d like something free.
I have an iPod Classic and need to copy music (including playlists and ratings), videos and podcasts. Any suggestions?
My problem is that i’ve managed to copy all the music files from my ipod back to my pc and into itunes, however like 1000 of these songs are still titled under itune’s four-letter code and nothing else. I looked in the F:\iPod_Control/music folders and these same files are nothing but four capital letters!
I used a program called Fixitunes that was supposed to get my info back but it didn’t change these songs.
Does anyone know how rename my songs without having to type out each one?
Recently had to have my pc “wiped”. My iTunes library is still saved somewhere on my pc but was told I would likely have to reinstall iTunes. Not sure how to do that. My library is still on my ipod intact. Can I install something like Sharepod and dump my tunes off my ipod into that without hassle? If so, can I continue to rip CDs as I always have. I have no purchased material in my library, only CDs
Thanks for the Info, This Actually worked, the first option worked for me and i have a windows Vista. At first i thought is was impossible because when i clicked on each unhidden folder, it displayed the size of the folder which was MB’s, so i thought that it was untrue, because i had over 20Gb’s worth of music. So i gave it a try anyway and copied it to the new folder. and as it was transferring, it displayed that it was copying over 5000 items. and you know what, it saved me money because of the simple fact that i was about to buy one of those transfer software’s. but no need now or ever. Yes Share pod and all that stuff works, but this is the most simple free method there is. Once again Thanks or the Info. I would have never known, the way they have these transfer software’s out there, make it seem like it impossible to do it without it, but apparently thats not the case
hi i am using windows home premium and i want to rip all the contents on my ipod to my new laptop i have recently purchased can yu guys help me to find the hidden files or a free software to rip all the photos songs and apps and videos to my new laptop
thanx for the help
i mean windows 7 home premuim
I LOVE YOU! I thought all was lost
Thank you 
I have a ipod that was synced with a mac. I want to move the songs to my pc and my new itunes library. I am trying the above, but it says do you want to sync to windows first and will not let me open it unless I click “yes”. will this erase all the songs on the ipod? I have over 5000 songs and do not want to lose them! How do I do this?
I just did this with windows 7. the way to show hidden files is to use the help button, type in show hidden files and click on the link in the help and follow instructions.
I did Method#1 and the file won’t transfer to Itunes….not sure why…any advice?
the first way worked fine for me, thanks
Old laptop got a virus. Got a new laptop with Windows 7. Husband wiped old laptop hard drive clean, iTunes library gone. I have most of my music on my Iphone. How can I get what music I have onto the new laptop? Haven’t connected my Iphone to new laptop because I’m afraid I will lose all contacts and music!
I have Vista on my laptop. How D\doo I get my music from my ipod 3rd gen to my laptop?
We have new computer with Windows 7 and need to tfr music from Ipod to the new computer. So far can only find instructions for XP, does anyone have instructions for Windows 7. I can’t even locate the Ipod icon in the “Computer” folder which shows the hard drives internal and external and the CD drive. When I plugged the Ipod in the computer recognised new hardware and the Itunes library came up with the 3 free songs and asked if I wanted to sinc which I promptly cancelled. There must be a simple way, hellllp please
I’ve got a Mac formatted ipod video and need to get music to Windows XP. Unfortunately I don’t have the use of a Mac as an intermediate step. Any method I try XP tries to have me reformate the ipod, or the program I use doesn’t recognize the ipod. Any help would save me hours of pain!
@Stephanie who wrote on June 19th, 2009 12:38 am:
I love you!!!!
Method 1 was driving me crazy since all these files in vista were hidden and it was all super complicated to unhide them. But your detailed and easy to read and follow directions (that you stole but who cares) saved my sanity. You made my night! Now I’m looking forward to doing my three research papers now that I have my old music back to jam to.
Once again, I freaking love you and thank you and thanks to the original poster!
thnks man u help me save my christmas vids thnks man from bottom of my heart man
I need some help. I have my music on my ipod and I’m trying to transfer it over to my macbook, but when I downloaded ipoddisk and tried to open it, it says “windows dos” …… it seems as if I need windows to execute the file..
Method 1 worked great, though I did have to”select all” and transfer folder contents of the music files and not as the folders themselves, but I’m happy I was able to move a couple thousand songs to the new touch!
Thanks for the help.
has anyone tried using any of the programs above with the iphone 3GS? my laptop was stolen last thursday and i have no backups of any of my music, videos, photos, etc. – i will soon be purchasing a new laptop that i’m sure will have windows 7. any help on transferring everything over to the new laptop will be much appreciated!
I have an iPhone and am trying to get music off of it the same way you describe in your 1st method. I am able to find my iPhone in My Computer, go into tools to display hidden folders but the ipod_control folder does not appear. I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong and when I go into my iPhone folder all that shows up are my pictures from my camera roll.
Any help??
I came across this website when I had two incedents where my iTunes library erased everything from my iPod touch.I tried everything. Unhiding the folders, downloading random software on the Internet, and even buying software that promised to back everything up. I came across this site and read the comment and read about SharePod. It backed up everything for free. I would recommend it to any one with the same problems I HAD.
this is a real lifesaver, thanks!
for either windows or mac you can use a program called TUNEaid its not free but it works amazingly it costs roundabout’ 10 US dollars
Thank you sooooo much for this post, i needed this desperately I used the method 1 but i found that using add file to library (the last step) worked, instead of adding the folder to the libarary.
Great success and thanks sooooo much again!!!!
This worked great. I then downloaded ITUNES and it automatically moved all of the songs from the folder on the computer to ITUNES in no time at all! 16gb of crap!
Charlie
Mac formatted Ipod to Windows 7:
1. HFSExplorer. http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html
2. Extract Music folder to folder on Windows 7.
3. Import to Itunes 9.
Worked great…tags and artwork intact.
Step 1 worked great. Two points of clarification: If you are on Vista the instructions for showing hidden files won’t work (atleast they didn’t for me). Second point, when I tried to add the folders to iTunes nothing happened until deselected hidden from the folder properties.
Can someone help me with this issue: To make a long story short, Itunes wants to register my IPod as new for some reason so the only way for me to keep my 3000 songs is to upload them from my Ipod to my computer in another folder..once I click register or never register on ITunes when I plug in my IPod it will wipe out my songs..so I need to store them in a folder other than ITunes so I can wipe it out and then add all my songs…the only suggesttions and programs I’ve seen are for putting songs directly into your ITunes or it automatically taking them over. I need to just store them on a folder that has nothing to do with ITunes and then go in and connect my Ipod and then transfer them over..all without losing my songs on another folder…it’s ridiculous. Let me also warn anyone not to update to ITunes 9 if you have a classic IPod..it’s not compatible and you will lose everything..at least I did and Apple cannot help me..yet are aware of the problem!! Anyway, if anyone can suggest the best way I would so appreciate it. Thanks
Sharepod is a great software to do just that. It gives you an option on either to save music to your computer only or also to iTunes. It’s a good software and free. Only thing is not sure of any viruses in software. But I would definatly recommend it.
Thanks mate, you’re a ledge!
Great!!Thanks a lot..was worried that I would lose all my songs earlier…=)
This worked great!! thanks everyone
use linux is another way. and ps3 is yet another method
i have video cam on mine… and i discovered can’t get a video i shoot off of it
wtf is the point! ps3 is nice for extracting mp3s in that it keeps the names of songs correct instead of the garble that other pc’s see it as. however, it is not possible to grab the vid i shot for some reason, but the lin pc worked fine for that. just make sure to unhide the files and with use ps3 method hit triangle and select ‘show all’
Just an addition, I am usually using sharepod, which is free to download software. It’s the application that I use when sharing my audio guitar lessons from my iPod to my students.
Alright…so for all you out there who have been wondering how to pull your music off your iPod (formatted to a Mac) to your PC I have your long awaited answer. I had this problem and couldn’t find anything that would work until finally I found MacDrive. This is a program that seems to charge. However, there is a 5 day free trial. Here is the link:
http://www.mediafour.com/support/updates/product/macdrive8.en-US
Click on the link that says “Download MacDrive 8.0.5 (5MB)” (about halfway down the page). Its a decent size file…might take a minute or two depending on your internet connection. Then you will have to restart your computer. After that you should be good to go.
When you restart your computer you’ll have to follow the instructions at the beginning of this post:
1. Connect your iPod (it should appear in iTunes now).
2. Make sure that your iPod is set to “Enable Disk Use”.
3. Open “My Computer” (your iPod should be shown under the Devices with Removeable Storage).
4. Right click your iPod and select “Explore”.
5. Then paste “G:\iPod_Control\Music” into the address bar (nothing will show up because the files are hidden).
6. Right click in the blank area and select “Properties”.
7. Under the “General” tab de-select the “Attributes” option that says “Hidden”.
8. Click “Apply”. Then Click “Okay”. (This should cause all of the folders that contain your music to appear.)
9. Create a new folder on your desktop that you can copy and paste all of your music into.
10. Select all of the folders containing your music, copy, and paste them into the folder you just created. (This might take a while depending on how much music you have.)
From there on all you have to do is add the files to your iTunes library! I hope that this helps you all out!
Thank You!!!
I’ve been trying to find the answer to this question but either I keep missing it or it’s not answered here!
I have an ipod with all my music and photos on and it’s now my only copy of them. The ipod is formatted for a mac but I’m now on a pc running vista. Can anyone explain simply how to extract them all please?
Thanks!
Hmmm I’m sure the message above wasn’t there when I posted this question!! Do forgive me…and thanks for that info – I hope it works!!!
Hmm I connect my ipod and try to explore it but it says that it must be formatted first. Of course I’m not going to do that…so is there any other way of extracting everything from it?
Emily,
Which OS are you running and where did you get your music from originally?
Also with iPod nano 5th generations the 1st windows method copys podcasts and movies, movies need to be re named tho
Thanks a bunch mate, I got a new laptop because my old one fried and I was going crazy trying to find all the music again online…..Thanks!
Hey Emily!
First, copy it’s contents on another PC using something like TuneAid (http://www.digidna.net/products/tuneaid) ..
Then use MacDrive (you get a trial version from http://www.mediafour.com) to format it to PC, and reload it with what you had copied to the PC,
then use TuneAid (again, but a single license suffice) to copy all music back to your Mac’s iTunes!
you can also use a program called idump. its really easy to use, just download install, plug your ipod in and open the program. it automatically detects your ipod and starts copying all your music to your music folder in my documents. bam your done. simple as pie
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I have been trying to do this for ages but have been afraid of losing my music through dodgy software – i really didn’t want to waste my money either on software that didn’t work so option one was the best for me!
I don’t really mind if the names of the tracks don’t come up properly, as long as i have the actual music stored i’m fine.
Thank you so much for posting these, you have saved me invaluable time and loads of cash!
I have a Mac-formatted iPod. Is there a way to transfer music to a PC?
Thanks!
Melissa
Thank you so much!!! Method one also works for Windows 7. Also, to find preferences, you need to look under the “Edit” tab if you’re using iTunes 9.1.
Hard drive died on my PC…need to get music off of my PC formatted iPod and onto my new Apple laptop. Suggestions for best way to do this?
PC laptop died. Need the best way to get music from PC formatted iPod onto my new Apple laptop. Suggestions?
im on windows vista and i’ve clicked show hidden files and it only comes up with internal storage (i have an ipod touch) can anyone help?
i have doen step 1-3 on method one but i am stuck on step 4 i dont know where current pods is and i dont mind re-naming everything but will i be able to sync more music and do as normal after because i read a comment above and they said that they done method one but was unable to sync after that :/ please help
Thank You so Much!!!…. This helped me incredebly much… i have recently changed operative to Windows 7 and that way my Itunes and all the music in it was deleted tho the Ipod was still synked to the old Itunes library… With the help of this wonderful guide i got all my music back… Thanks alot
Thank you so much! This was a lifesaver. Everything worked just as suggested!
thanks very much you are a star!!
I fucking love you! i allways wandered how to do that now i know. thank you so much my computer just crashed an i had to restore the whole thing an the only thing i was pissed about is loosing 1300 songs. thank you again!!!!!!!!!!
ok i have tried everything like the different internet sites say to get them off like make all the hidden files show up, and i tried to copy them and a little window will eventually pop up and it says “Cannot copy FJRK: the parameter is incorrect” it doesnt just do it on that one file it does it starting after that one, it just wont copy, is their anything i can do???????
Thank you so much! I was having a huge amount of trouble with this but this just made things so much easier! Thanks!
I have ipod in mac mode need to put on pc how do i do this i suck at comper stuff the safe way not to loose 700 songs please!
Thank you SO much, you’re a legend! My PC had to be wiped and I hate building my Library from scratch!
I use SharePod, it a FREE ipod copy program that works just like itunes but you can copy back to computer! http://www.getsharepod.com/
Quick question! Im pretty sure its been discussed already, but I was trying to transfer my 10,000+ songs from my iPod to my MacBook (with Snow Leopard). I just recently replaced my hard drive from a crash and need to get my music from iPod! Can anyone please help with a free program that I can download without any problems that is Mac friendly!!! I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT!!!!!
I have used expod before. It works really well. Good information and very complete list.
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I’ve used method 1 before on another computer, but I’ve just got a new laptop with Windows 7 and my iPod doesn’t come up on the My Computer bit, any ideas why that’s happening?
I was sooo pleased to find this site…. my laptop hard drive fried itself and I needed to get my music from my ipod to my new laptop. I followed method 1 and it worked well – only thing was I seemed to have to copy it file by file rather than by the folder…..but was happy to do that to have my music!
Thanks again!!
Tks for ur share …
Expod rocks ! love u man !
My ipod was originally set up for Mac, now i need to transfer music to Windows PC but it tell me to formatt my ipod, how can I format it but not losing any data? thankx
Those of you who were asking about Windows 7, you can use sharepod. It’s free, fast and doesn’t limit how many songs you can move to your pc. It’s also REALLY easy to use! http://www.getsharepod.com
my ipod dosent show up as a mobile device on “my computer” it dosent show up at all.
im trying to get my music from my tower to my lap top
Omgoodness, thank you this was so helpful! My computer crashed and I was afraid id have to loose THOUSANDS of songs to ever update my ipod again!
guys, try ifunbox for windows, pretty easy software to use.
When i go to computer it comes up as portable devices, Daniels Ipod. I open it then open internal storage and all i can do is open a folder called DCIM, then there’s two options: 100APPLE and 999APPLE, both folders are empty yet i have hundreds of songs on my ipod? I’ve enabled the ‘show hidden files, folders, and drivers’ button yet still nothing comes up. Can anyone help?
Method 1 is great thank u
Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I used your back alley way through a PC to get my songs back off my iPod and it was super easy! I am so grateful to you for posting these different strategies. I’m so so happy that I don’t have to deal with finding some other way of getting my songs back, or worst case scenario, buying them all back from iTunes. Steve Jobs needs to solve this conundrum! In the meantime, there’s your fantastic website. Thank you again.
just curious but what is the best choice for a mac os x?
Thanks for giving these to us! It really helped.
NOTE: IpodDisk Does NOT work with new Ipod Nanos, but Expod does…just a note.
I am trying to use method one, and my computer keeps telling me that it can’t copy certain files because they are “too deep.” After that error message it aborts the file transfer. Any suggestions?
I personally think you are an expert in this field. Keep up the good work. I will must thank the per son who gave the url of your site. Thanks for sharing.
An answer to all the people who want to get music from a mac-formatted iPod onto a PC!! (Hopefully nobody has answered this yet, but I just read the question so many times I figured I’d scroll to the bottom and answer it..)
Download a program called HFSExplorer (http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html)
It will let you view all the contents of your mac-formatted iPod as if it were an external hard disk (which I guess it is, really..).
All you have to do then is copy all of the files into a new folder on your computer (i.e. C:\ipodcontents\), then go to iTunes, then click File, then Add Folder to Library, and voila! All of your music, playlists, cover art etc is there. Start to finish, it took me about 15 minutes, though that was with a nano.
Hopefully this works for everyone.
Thanks for this! I’ve done it before but it’s been awhile and this explained it perfectly =D I was minutes away from wasting months of my previously downloaded CD’s to my old computers iTunes when I remembered there was a way to move them and that’s when I found you! What a relief!!!
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Used method 1 perfect!
Only thing was which I don’t know if it has been mentioned here is that the files copied from the iPod had to be un-hidden before iTunes would add them to the library in step 6
I used the ‘expod’ software for mac and was extremely pleased to finally see results
Okay. Before my husband’s PC died, we did one final backup to external hard drive. The ITunes folder has within it an Album Artwork folder, ITunesMusic folder and these three files: ITunesmusicLibrary.xml
ITunesLibraryGenius.itdb
ITunesLibrary.itl
ITunes LibraryExtras.itdb
ITunes is loaded now on the new Windows7 PC.
what steps exactly do we follow to get the saved stuff onto the new PC. I’m not clear on which files and in what order I move to where.
I shouldn’t have to plug in the ipod (and risk it getting wiped) since everything is on the external hard drive, right?
Anyone know how to make method 1 work with an iPod touch 2g?
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What about using TouchCopy 09? Does this work well? Also what about my playlists? Will they transfer over. I have a new computer and want to transfer my ipod and itunes on it.
I found this very helpful thanks alot!
Davo, Thanks for your comment on Sept 1st! I downladed the HFSExplorer for free and ran it and 30 minutes later I had 14G of music downloaded on to my new Windows based PC from my Mac based iPod! I can not tell you what a releif it was not to loose 3700 songs. Thanks again!
I have windows vista and an ipod touch and i also can not find the ipod_control folder?? only internal storage comes up??
can someone help me?
i want all the artwork with my songs too.
I have a mac configured ipod from which I would like to download my music to my new pc.
Can anyone suggest a way of doing this because I am hopeless.
Thanks, the best guide on the internet. You’re a lightsabre.
this looks helpful but i cant find the tools menu, i have windows 7 but previously had windows xp can anyone help?
i fucking love you!
you saved me so much time i thought i was going to have to redownload the 3,000 songs on my ipod to my new laptop. thank you! thank you! thank you!
Thanks so much for this, my pc broke down and lost all my songs, so this was a huge help. My dad complimented me by saying I was like “Gino from the matrix”. I think he meant Neo, but it’s the thought that counts…
sharepod did the job for me… nothing else worked!! im so glad
Step #1 worked beautifully for me! My pc had crashed and when the hard drive was replaced, I lost all my music except for what was on 3 generation nano that had fallen into a puddle of diet coke and barely worked.
I was able to transfer everything over to my laptop (running vista) from the ipod, and then transfer that to my replacement ipod. It took about 1/2 hour total and was super easy.
Thanks!
Thank you soooooooo much!! i was able to keep all of my old music from my old computer that crashed on my ipod and add new music that was on my new itunes!!!
wow sharepod works like a charm , I tried method 1 but since windows 7 doesnt have the tools option I was forced to download sharepod . I’m very impressed thanks!!
@tofor I tried method 1 on my windows 7 laptop with no results I suggest you download sharepod, It took lke 2 minutes to download and unzip And I can promise you that you won’t regret spending those 2 mins downloading such an awesome program
Ok LISTEN, STILL NO one has addressed the issue of the files that have the 4 letters (i.e ABCD) that come over WITHOUT song information! Meaning no artist, no album, no track number, no actual title. Also some songs come over and some don’t! Does ANYONE have a solution for this or not! I know for a fact that you people arent just bringing your songs over and every single one works perfect! I had about 15,000 songs and only 11,000 came over. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP. Again, my issue is that some of the songs that DID come over are still in “ABCD” format and others just never left the F folder… Its like ITUNES doesnt even recognize the song to bring over even though its in ABCD format!!! HELP!
ok everything is working fine from step one except it will only transfer one song at a time! i have like 6000 songs to transfer so that will take way too long. any reason why it wont transfer(import) the whole folder???
I have the same question as DLOON.
“STILL NO one has addressed the issue of the files that have the 4 letters (i.e ABCD) that come over WITHOUT song information! Meaning no artist, no album, no track number, no actual title. Does ANYONE have a solution for this??
Having 2 laptops and 1 computer damaged/crash I was starting to panic as my iPod appeared to be on it’s last legs and practically ALL my music was stored on it (So many mixes from years ago I can’t find anywhere on the web)
SharePod worked perfectly for me, backed up all 10GB in around 15 minutes!!
MASSIVE thanks for posting, it’s so easy to use and I’ll definitley recommend to any mates who find themselves in a similar dilemna.
None of the above methods or programs works for my and my Mac. One program even stupidly enough tells me it needs OS X 10.4 or later… and I have 10.6
I want to get the recordings from my iPod Touch. The only method so far is to SEND them to myself via mail. That of course works only when I have a WLAN.
Seriously, Apple, how can you make such a beautiful device so crappy through its software!?
Ummm Didn’t work on mine. I have a windows 7 and it has my Ipod as a digital camera on “my computer” and will only show pics. EVEN WITH MY HIDDEN FILES AND STUFF SHOWN!!!!!!!!!!!
Anapod/Anapop is a SCAM. The company went bankrupt like 2 years ago. If you buy their product, they will never send you the activation key so you can actually USE it. But they will keep your money.
The one software I can recommend for Windows is Sharepod.
I downloaded pretty much everything else on here, and most were had trial versions that would require payment in order to get more than 10 or 30 songs at a time.
I even tried a few things that were not listed and ended up with spyware which I had to clean.
Sharepod worked awesome.
If you tried something that didn’t give you the results you wanted, then start over with Sharepod – PERIOD!
Expod worked great:) Thank you so much for these tips. I have tried to transfer music from my iphone and ipod to my comuter for a while. Expod worked awsome: )
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP. IT WORKED. THANKS AGAIN.
THANKS!
Thank you so much the first way does work and sunce my hard drive crashed this has been the first helpful site or article
it does work on windows 7
Hey guys I got a new 16 gig nano but I want the music from my old 2 gig nano on my new 16 gig and I haven’t got the music.
So I did this thing but it doesn’t show the “\iPod_Control\Music” folder and I have unhidden the folders
Can you help?
I have a MacBookPro OS X 10.5.8 and both iPodDisk and Expod – which Chuck mentioned as method 3 and 4 – works great – thanks!!
And a couple of links that I found useful:
Download iPodDisk:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19890/ipoddisk
You have to download MacFUSE also for iPodDisk to work:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23729/macfuse
Download expod:
http://www.headlightsoft.com/expod/
This page shows you how to put your ipod into Disk Mode – necessary for using both iPodDisk and Expod:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1363
Remember to set your itunes NOT to open automatically when the ipod is connected – the programs can’t detect your ipod as a disk if itunes is open and has detected the ipod as an ipod (hope it makes sense).
Thanks again – Ida
I tried some of the other software to transfer my music from my ipod to my computer, but I did not want to pay for new software to transfer the music so this program http://www.getsharepod.com/…..worked perfectly and its free and now I can give the ipod to my daugher and put music on it that I would like her to hear…thanks for the hookup
Does the first meathod work with an iPod Touch 2gen with iOS 4.2.1?
I need to know if this proceduree will work on windows vist?
*** Vista
what is the best version of itunes will the first method work the best with?
mine doesn’t say mobile device it says its a camera and it only lets me get the pictures it doesn’t let me get the music
help?
I tried the windows recommendation tonight and it worked wonders. You are a blessing thank you!
expod worked!
I have an ipod with over 112G of music content. The ipod was loaded through a mac computer, which I dont have access to anymore. I would like to upload all the music from this ipod (mac formatted) into my PC with Vista. Then format my ipod to sync with windows. In my ITunes, the ipod will not show the ipod capacity now although the ipod says 32G available ou of 160G. I tried Method 1 as described from this tread but I cannot get #4 instruction “ipod_control\music” to show anywhere in the computer. I also tried the www. getsharepod.com to work. I downloaded that software, but it states it cannot find the ipod although I have the ipod connected to the laptop. I tried winamp, but again winamp doesn’t find the ipod. The ipod will play music and operates when connected to a sounddock or headphones. Do I need to buy a used mac laptop and then copy all the ipod music files into that laptop then erase the ipod’s content then format the ipod for windows vista before I can save all the music onto a windows based platform and reload into the ipod?…any help would be appreciated.
Ive found Xilisoft’s Ipod Magic fairly useful.
Demo version is free and not crippleware.
(I use an unjailbreaked iPod Touch 3G on a MacBook.)
PC ONLY, I DONT KNOW ABOUT MAC
DONT DOWNLOAD ANY ALLEGED “IPOD SONG TRANSFER” PROGRAM!!!!!!
Ight here is the most legit way to get ALLLLL your music and stuff off your ipod, im not guaranteeing artwork and names of songs but at least you’ll have your precious music that you probably spent hours downloading. Ok, so the only program you’ll need is WINRAR, the free trial verision. Download and install that, it takes like 2 seconds, and then if you havent already enable disk view in itunes under your iPOD summary tab that pops up when you plug your ipod in. Next open up WinRAR and navigate to your ipod, it should be under My Computer as a drive, open it up and you should get a multitude of folders and files. There should be a file there called “IPOD_CONTROL” or something to that effect, if you dont see it its hidden. Open that folder. Next click on the “Music” folder that appears when you open ipod_control. All the folders in that are YOUR SONGS!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately they are not organized or even named. DO NOT START TRANSFERING YET! First you have to copy all the folders to a folder on your desktop or wherever you please. After you have copied the files…START TRANSFERING!!!!!! from wherever you copied them to. To the best of my knowledge, a lot of the artwork and names, artists, and albums and whatnot should still be intact with the music files, fortunately you love music enough to do this so i think you’ll be able to name your songs and artists with ease. Again, DONT DOWNLOAD ANY ALLEGED “IPOD SONG TRANSFER” PROGRAM, they always have some kind of gimmick which most likely involves you buying something.
dude thankyou so much this helped alot THANKS!!
Hello Chuck,
I just tried method 1 and I have a problem. My computer recognizes the Ipod as a mobile device, but only as a camera.
When I double click, a new window opens telling me about “General” information and “Hardware” information. Nothing about Tools Menu and View tab.
Can you help me?
Thanks!
I have a MacBook – help! Can’t transfer from one iPod to the library
great!By the way,may be this will be better cheap nfl jerseys Do one thing at a time, and do well.
What about windows 7 …. when I plug the Ipod, open as a drive M … it doesnt give me and ‘explore’ or an options or tool menu ??
Doesn’t work bud!!
Thanks for posting this! My old computer finally bit the dust, it crashed, won’t start, completely infected with virus’. I have 4000+ songs, I’m a die hard music lover and to go back and re-download all those songs… ugh! Method one works for me, and I’ve used it before too. So thank you!!!
I feel like method one won’t work for everyone though. I have a fourth generation iPod Nano, or third, LOL it’s a Nanochromatic, not one with a camera. Anyway I also have an older computer, with Windows XP. My friend said she tried this on Windows 7, and it didn’t work. So those who say it doesn’t work, it’s probably something to do with your computer and not the method itself because it’s worked a few times for me.
Can anyone help me. I have followed method one up to step 6, but at this point the files will not move onto my i-pod, However, also, I can now no longer play the files that are already in itunes as this is now saying ‘song cannot be played as original file cannot be found’. It also appears as though this has wiped everything off my i-pod! However, the song names are showing, they just won’t play! Can anyone advise please???
the easiest way i found;
on a pc copy the music file on the ipod to a new folder on the ipod and the right click sharinf un-tick hidden folder then plug it back into the mac and just drag and drop the whole folder
didn’t have to download any programs and it’s easy
Thanks for the info. I didnt bother reading through all the comments to see if anyone else has picked up on the changes but decided I would list them myself.
Method 4: Mac OS X – Expod (free)
This is no longer being downloaded. The new software is: DeTune
http://www.headlightsoft.com/detune/
Awesome program! Worked exactly like expected…a “mac charm” and its free!
Thank you.
Thanks to everyone for their contributions! Sharepod saved my life! Nearly lost 900+ tracks. It took a little a couple of hours to sort everything out, but it was a complete and total success. Easy interface, plug-n-play… PERFECT! And recently update for the latest iteration of iTunes, too!
http://www.getsharepod.com/
I am trying to get all the music off of my wifes mac synced iPod nano 3rd generation to my laptop that uses Windows 7 because she no longer has the Mac… I used this site called http://www.copytrans.net and it worked transferring up to 250 songs but that was it and I even tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it to see if it would let me get the last 104 songs off it… I tried SharePod but because it it formatted with Mac it will not let me transfer anything.. Can anyone HELP me with this?? Thank You
For those not seeing your ipod show in your directory to choose from when using method 1 .. When plugging into the computer either don’t have itunes automatically start or if it does do not click ” cancel ” when prompted to erase and sync. It will make it seem as if its disconnected from your computer hence not showing in the directory.
Just my .02
Ok, I am a non-PC user and as such I need help. I purchased an IMAC, formatted my Ipod on I tunes and down loaded music..no problems. I had my buddy download his music library on my Ipod. He uses windows, had to reformat the Ipod to down load the music. I am trying to copy my reformatted Ipod to my IMAC itunes but cant sync. What can I do?
Wow.. your post is very good. Not only was it helpful, it taught me some new prescpectives Just added this to my bookmarts Keep posting buddy
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**NOTE: a simple method to find only certain artists, songs or albums.
when you are in the ipod/music folder, search for the specific name of what you want ie: the beatles, using “search in file contents”
it isn’t extremely specific but it’s better than loading the entire ipod library if you are trying to single out one album.
I usually copy music from computer to iPod. As for the other way around, I knew that I have to look for the side of iPod through control panel. I’ve done this copying music from iPod to computer when I tried to restore the factory settings of my iPod. Thanks for the interesting article.
Dude, thanks man!!!
Wish it were that simple….just found an old gen. 2 iPod I forgot I had. I would really love to move the music as that was 6 or maybe 7 laptops ago. lol Problem is after I stop iTunes from syncing my iPod disappears. Cant see it in My Computer or explorer. Any ideas? I have spent hours trying to find a fix to no avail.
WOW! Got it! Had to stop iTunes from starting when I plugged the iPod in. Also, I had 6 folders from my iPod, had to move each folder and BAM!
Thanks,
It is a nice article about how to copy music off iPod. But I have skimed over one article about copying music off Apple iPod. The article is named – Copy music off iPod, you can click it to enjoy.
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That’s really useful tips for those users who don’t like to use itunes to manage media contents, and you site provides many useful info, keep up the good work, also welcome to my website: drm removal
I like your website and found your post very enlighening and informative which gave me food for though and sent me back to the drawing board to create a site that is also helpful, informative and creative as yours.
so i transfered my ipod files (ipod_control) to the harddrive but now the itunes won’t add the file to the libraray and the library sits empty? what am i doing wrong?
This is excellent straight forward information. Worked like a charm. Thank you
A very helpfull post – Thank you very much I wish you dont mind me writting about this article on my blog I will also link back to this post Thanks
I tried to do this (method 1) but it doesn’t show up in my computer… What to do???
I tried option 1, works perfectly. Thanks a lot!
this was amazing. thank you a lot.
thank you. i cannot tell you what this means to me.
I haven’t been able to find a “completely free, take the whole 677 songs off my ipod” program, any help with one? Also I’m unable to access my iPod manually because it shows up as a camera? Any help.. A program would be best.. Email me? Alicia_mcc@live.ca please please.
I just wanted to say this post and the comments below have been extremely helpful. I was about to pull my hair out trying to get Media Monkey to do what I wanted.
I tried using SharePod and it worked like a charm – such a simple interface!
This is a post about this subject I really wanted to read.Thanks. I usually copy music from computer to iPod. As for the other way around, I knew that I have to look for the side of iPod through control panel. I’ve done this copying music from iPod to computer when I tried to restore the factory settings of my iPod. Thanks for the interesting article. convert to mp4
I’m surprised that TouchCopy is not on the list. It is probably the most popular program to transfer music from your iPod to your PC or Mac.
This has been a bloody lifesaver after my computer crashed. Many thanks!
Ditto to what Angelino said! Thank you very much for your helpfulness!
I have a windows configured ipod and just purchased a mac. if I plug the ipod to the mac, will itunes start deleting the songs off my ipod before I have a chance to try any of the other methods mentioned here?
None for a mac are completly free it is blowing my life i have downloaded them all and they only copy a small amount
Im scared to try it cuz my computer crashed and i have 2,489 songs most of them are purchesed does that method work for windows ? For purcheses ? I need to know cuz my ipod touch is old and none of the buttons work plz write me back im getting a new one soon and i need to know if it wont delete my purchsed songs its a first generation ipod touch thanks for the method tho ill try it once i get a answer
I just copied songs off my ipod using the first method it worked I restored my songs but some of the codes didnt disappear and I’m not able to find any song I look for. How can I fix this. Thanks…
I love you. You saved me. I used method 4 and it worked perfectly!!!! Thank you
Thanks! It was a huge help….pretty sure you’ve saved a lot of lives since this has been posted
I have a mac laptop, and an ipod nano that i needed to copy songs from to my mac. so i downloaded sharepod and it didn’t work (said it was a windows app)? so then i downloaded expod and extracted the songs to my music folder where it saved them all as mp3 files. the mp3 files will not show up in my itunes. any help would be appreciated!?
I have a MAC formatted ipod ( a gen 1 nano) that a friend of mine loaded from his massive CD collection that he put on his MAC. I need to rip the music off of my ipod (there is a recall on my nano and it has to go to Apple and will come back empty) and store it and then restore the content to my ipod when I get it back. The problem is I dont have an itunes account because all of the content was originally burned from my buddy’s MAC and I own a PC. Many of the software programs available all say the same thing that you cant put the MAC formatted ipod content on a PC and I dont have a MAC. Do you know of any way for me to get the content off the MAC formatted ipod and store it on my PC?
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I am so glad I stumbled across your website. My coumputer crashed six months ago. I have asked everyone how I could get and keep my music since the old computer died and I couldn’t get it out. I have over 1500 songs on my ipod. Went to the apple store and they couldn’t help, duh; and they made the darn thing. All they could tell me is save on another source when I get new music. That did NOTHING for valuable music I have and can not replace on my ipod now. So you can tell I have been holding onto the music in my ipod for dear life not wanting to erase when I sync with my new computer. Their system is so crazy! This took a minute for me to figure out but I have my music (saved on an external drive for future problems). All but about 8 songs transferred which I can work with.
Thank you again, you are a life saver!!!!
Does not work
you had my hope up 
Thank you for posting this. I was having a difficult time copying. I lost a lot of music files by switching computers without backing up first. Grrrr. Thanks again, very helpful
Just fixed this for a friend with an iPod and loads of music they wanted to recover from it for a wedding. Expod works wonders on a Mac (OS X 10.6.8) and it was a doddle to get the files off.
great resource – thanks.