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Can I transfer music from my iPod onto my Mac?

I'm running iTunes v 4.9 on my Mac (running Mac OS X 10.2.8). I screwed up somehow and deleted my old music library trying to fix a diiferent problem. I learned my lesson on that. I have on older v 1.5 iPod with all my music on it. Can I transfer those songs into my library?


Dave's Answer:

This is actually easy once you know the secret of working with the iPod as a regular device, rather than as a special auto-synchronizing device. Of course, the sync feature is one reason the iPod is so popular, but just for a few minutes, let's disable it, okay?

Plug your iPod into the target computer and launch iTunes.

In addition to the usual "Library", "Podcasts", "Party Shuffle", etc,. you should also see your iPod on the left side. Click on it to select it.

Now, along the bottom right edge of the iTunes window are a bunch of little icons: click on the one that looks like a tiny iPod. It'll bring up this configuration window:

iPod configuration options in Apple's iTunes

Notice here that I do not have either of the first two selected, but rather have "Manually manage songs and playlists". That's what you want to select too.

Now, close the preferences window and go back to the main iTunes window. You should still be looking at all the songs that are on your iPod. To copy them onto your new computer, simply select all the songs by using Edit --> Select All then drag them all onto the "Library" entry in the left column.

Give it a few minutes to copy everything and you should be set to go with a restored iTunes library. Phew!

Once that's all copied over, go back to the iTunes preferences and re-enable the autosync feature if you want.

Note: Since I don't have any music I've purchased from the iTunes Music Store, I am not sure what happens with registered music when you do this type of copy. My guess is that it'll just as for you to reauthorize your computer, but perhaps someone who has tried this copying technique with authorized music can share what happens?

Hope this gets you up and running again!


Update: in some situations this won't work because iTunes won't let you drag and drop tracks from the iPod onto your Library folder, that is, copy music back onto your Mac. Fortunately, software authors have come up with some slick solutions for this problem, notably the freeware Xpod and the application Senuti. iPod music file transfer tools. If you can can't get the above directions to work, one of these should solve your problem!


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Comments

This method does not work. Did you even try it?

Posted by: Simon at August 10, 2005 8:46 PM

Can't imagine why it doesn't work for you. I use it to copy music between my main desktop Mac and my PowerBook...

Posted by: Dave Taylor at August 10, 2005 8:58 PM

If you find that this doesn't work for you, by the way, then the alternative solution is to open up the Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type in the following;

$ cd /Volumes
$ ls

This will show you the iPod; change into that directory. On my system, the iPod's called Zephyr:

$ cd Zephyr
$ cd iPod_Control/Music

You can then find specific songs by looking for a snippet of the song name. For example, Bill Joel's Allentown;

$ ls */*llentown*
F49/18 Allentown.mp3

that's the file you'd want to copy - just move it to your Desktop, say, then you can drag and drop it into your iTunes properly:

$ cp */*Allentown* ~/Desktop

By using 'cp' you make sure that you don't harm any of the songs on your iPod. A bit tedious, yes, but it should work for you if the simpler strategy outlined above doesn't.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at August 11, 2005 12:27 AM

how can I send music that is in i-tunes to a friend via email?

Posted by: tim david at August 19, 2005 3:57 PM

Re: Transferring iPod music back to computer. I changed Macs and my new iMac won't recognize my iPod shuffle because it is linked to the old computer. Apple says I'm SOL and can never retrieve the music. Do you have any ideas for this? Thanks.

Posted by: George at August 23, 2005 11:17 PM

George, see the "Update" section in my original posting. I'm sure one of those shareware apps would do what you want!

Posted by: Dave Taylor at August 23, 2005 11:21 PM

Dave,
The Music store allows you to put the purchased music on up to 5 machines. I have redone it on one machine twice(only counts as one) and now have put it on a second machine. The store gave me the message that I could put it on 3 more.

Posted by: Jerry Mcclendon at September 25, 2005 7:26 AM

Dave,

I had iTunes installed in my old computer which I dont have anymore. So I installed Itunes to my new computer with the disk I had. I was able to download all of my songs from my ipod to my new computer. However I cant upload them now to Itunes in my new computer.

Help me out.

Posted by: al at October 6, 2005 3:52 AM

Hi Dave,
I have an iPod shuffle,i accidently deleted the old songs i had on it. I try putting on new songs but it doesn't work. What do i have to do?

Posted by: Daniel at October 27, 2005 5:13 AM

hey, is there any programme that can do the same on windows?

Posted by: ellie at December 12, 2005 5:30 PM

Hello Dave! I lived in the DR, Dominican reoublidc, I bought my ipod in the states and i have a little problem with it, my itunes got update and all my library disappeared completely from itunes, i still have it on my ipod, how do i copy my library to my itunes on pc? would you please show me?

Posted by: Fabio at January 10, 2006 1:29 PM

Hey dave i have a question you make think its stupid but my i pod nano brand new for christmas will not download the songs i have on my playlist im gettin frustrated with my nano i have a play list which has ruffly 160 songs the nano carrys 1,000 what do i do to get the songs from my computer i tunes to my i pod nano can you please help me

Sincerly Your Friend
- Jake

Posted by: Jake at January 19, 2006 6:52 PM

Another tip about iPod copying. I'm at work using my Windows "computer" so I don't have the details, which are at home, but you probably know them.
There is a Finder option one can change using Terminal => write defaults Finder something or other
(please help, Dave!) which causes the Finder to display all files including "invisible" ones. Do this and you will see all your music (with, probably, indecipherable folder names) in iPod/Control/Music or reasonable facsimile. These may then be dragged and dropped into the iTunes library.
Note: "solve the equation" -- the first time it was 24+18=, I answered "The meaning of life and everything ...", but your site appeared not to accept this obviously correct answer.

Posted by: Irl Smith at January 20, 2006 6:50 AM

Dave,
My Dell computer's hard drive crashed and I had to install a new one. When I tried to download a song to my iPod Nano, it asked if I wanted to replace my existing library. I said no, but how do I continue adding songs to my Nano without replacing the tons of songs I already have on it? Plus, is there any way to pull them from the Nano to the PC for backup? Thanks for your expert help!
Pam W.

Posted by: Pam at January 24, 2006 6:36 AM

HI, I HAVE A MACINTOSH AND RECENTLY WAS GIVEN A PSP FOR MY BDAY , HOW CAN I GET MUSIC ON THE PSP???? WITHOUT BUYING A SOFTWARE, I WENT TO THE MEMORYSTICK.COM SITE AND WASNT ALLOWED TO DOWNLOAD THE ESSENTIAL SOFTWARE. , THANKS

Posted by: LOUIE at February 5, 2006 2:03 PM

Pam, you can copy songs from your iPod back to your PC by using an ipod sync program. Go to http://www.download.com/ and search for "ipod sync" and you'll see some of the many choices out there.

Louie, you can definitely transfer music to your PSP without using any Sony software. See:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/about_psp_music.html

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 5, 2006 11:05 PM

how do you fix that when your ipod shuffle is in the USB port in your computer and you go to itunes and you icon is not there

Posted by: Matt at February 22, 2006 6:02 PM

Matt, Hmmm.... that's an odd one. Are you sure that your iPod is *turned on* and that your USB port is active? Are you plugging it into your keyboard USB port or directly into your computer? Does the shuffle work on other computers when you plug it in?

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 23, 2006 12:23 AM

Update to my note about making the Finder display all files, even hidden ones (useful for iPod thrashing and lots of other stuff, too):
The following AppleScript does it. To undo it, make another script which is identical except change "yes" to "no" in the long line. Note that the line 'do script ...' through 'exit"' is a single line. Note also that the double-quotes are important and must be as shown below. Finally, note that you will then see lots of files with odd names which you are encouraged to beware of modifying casually.

tell application "Finder"
quit
end tell
tell application "Terminal"
do script "nohup defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool yes 1>/dev/null;exit"
end tell
tell application "Finder"
activate
end tell
tell application "Terminal"
quit
end tell

Posted by: Irl Smith at March 12, 2006 9:43 AM

When switching computers (Windows) I used Podutil - a programme that allows you to upload music from an ipod to itunes. You can buy it for 5 euros, or use the trial version that gives you pop-ups telling you to buy the real one. I'm sure there is also a Mac version. It works great and saves a LOT of time so you don't have to delve into the inner workings of your ipod.

Posted by: Sarah at April 9, 2006 5:41 PM

Dear Dave,

My sister's powerbook crashed and she had to go to the apple store's genuis bar and erase all the contents of her computer. I found your site on the internet & when I tried to upload her ipod songs onto her (new) itunes library.....all her songs from her ipod erased. Is there any way I could upload my Ipod songs, to her computer, without erasing my ipod songs?

Posted by: Ani at June 19, 2006 8:20 PM

ay can u put songs on ur ipod on another computer without deleting your old files?

Posted by: nick at July 11, 2006 9:40 AM

Yes. You can't use iTunes, however: you need to use Senuti or similar. Check out:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/about_senuti.html

Posted by: Dave Taylor at July 11, 2006 9:12 PM

My boyfriend got an ipod for Christmas last year from a family member and there were 1300 songs already downloaded onto it. The family member erased the itunes off of his computer after he downloaded the songs. Is there any way that I can somehow find a device that will allow me to download the songs onto my computer so that certain songs can be deleted and new songs can be added (without erasing everything)? I have been searching everywhere and have asked the employees at Apple and the guy was reluctant about telling me but said that there is some way that you can manually put songs onto a computer without erasing all of the existing songs. Any help would be great!
Thanks.

Posted by: Natalie R. at October 15, 2006 10:26 AM

HELP!

A large chunk of my music disappeared from my Itunes on my Mac, with no warning. My list is there from A-E and evrything is there but is grey and cannot be found (if I click on it or search for it in my folders it says the file does not exist but I can see it there on my playlists). We're talking about hundreds of songs.

Any ideas on how I can it back to normal without having to reload evrything as suggested by the Mac store?

Posted by: KaJa at November 14, 2006 1:45 PM

I understand that the i-tunes library is an 'exact replica' of your songs on the ipod, but what if i wanted to add a playlist to my Nano without taking the songs i already have in it out? note:im using my friends library, thus i do not want to lose my songs in the process -PLEASE & THANK YOU!!!

Posted by: Crystal at December 3, 2006 4:16 AM

I have the same problem as below. And XPOD's link doesn not work, Any other options? Thanks. --Mia

>>>: in some situations this won't work because iTunes won't let you drag and drop tracks from the iPod onto your Library folder, that is, copy music back onto your Mac. Fortunately, software authors have come up with some slick solutions for this problem, notably the freeware Xpod iPod music file transfer tool. If you can't get the earlier suggestion to work, then Xpod could be just what you need.... <<<

Posted by: mia at December 24, 2006 2:28 AM

I'm running 10.4.8

That was horrible advice. Thanks for deleting my 4000 songs. now I have 4. Thanks for costing me music and photos I don't have backed up. When I plugged it in it deleted all my stuff automatically, and I can't change the preferences w/o the ipod being plugged in. Thanks, you ruined my week.

Posted by: l17 at January 23, 2007 7:19 PM

Tell me exactly what happened, l17: I have tested these directions extensively and as far as I have experienced, there's no way that iTunes would step on your library unless you clicked on the dialog box that says "sync" or "reformat", both of which have a warning about erasing the contents of your system.

Any music that you bought from the iTunes Store you can download again for free too, by the way. Hopefully you can do that without too much hassle.

Sorry for any problems you've had: if there are errors in my directions, I definitely want to know about it so I can fix them.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at January 23, 2007 8:04 PM

Oh dear ... I'll tell you exactly what happened with l17, and that is that they were not "fortunate" enough to be installing onto a new computer (if I've got my wits about me today). You'll only get those warning messages if you're plugging the iPod into a new or "new" computer. (Who just had to put a new hard drive into her computer? I just had to put a new hard drive into my computer. Who hates using USD as euros? ...)

You cannot cannot CANNOT set the iPod to manual-sync on a computer/iTunes which is set to auto-sync it IF the songs don't match anymore (without losing all music not on the computer), without being a little tricky. As has been pointed out, those options are usually impossible to change UNLESS you plug the iPod in. But once you plug it in, it'll sync, and you're toast.

You can stop it from doing this, I'm guessing, in a number of ways; one of them is outlined here (http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/comments/729631/). (If you're comfortable playing with hidden folders the rest could be useful, too, and certainly cheaper than non-free programs.)

I imagine, though I'm not 100% positive, that creating a new account while you fidget with your iPod should work, too. Once you've got it sorted out, you can toss the files into the drop folder for your main account and pull them into iTunes from there.

And while I recognize that hindsight is 20/20, it is indeed always a good idea to have your music and photos in at least two places. Easier said than done, though.

It is worth noting, too, that I believe that this drag-and-drop functionality has been totally screwed since you wrote this original post. Which is rather a bummer.

Posted by: Liene at January 28, 2007 4:59 AM

okay soooo i used to have windows computer and i got a new mac book. uhmmm so all my song files got deleted from my windows so now all i have is my ipod with all my songs on it. i bought some thing called ipod copy and it says i need to reconfigure my ipod with a mac...something like that...so i was going to and erase all of my songs...and then i found this website...and both directions were similar and I CANNOT DO THEM....its like go to preferences and click on the ipod tab....i do not have an ipod tab...I HATTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEE Itunes!! HELLPP!! please :)

Posted by: kate at January 31, 2007 2:20 PM

Dave,
I was searching for an answer and my question came up on your web site but I couldn't seem to find where you answered it. The question has to do with whether or not it is possible to send a song from iTunes to a friend via email.
Thanks

Posted by: Mike Bates at February 11, 2007 3:05 PM

I'm still trying to get my music from my iPod to my PC. I downloaded a program that put the music in "My Music" folder on my PC, but I can't get that into the iPod Library.

I also tried your steps outlined above to copy music to the Library folder -- didn't work...
Help!

Posted by: Diane Fink at March 6, 2007 1:50 PM

Hi, Dave ... I had my mac laptop stolen on the VERY DAY I bought a hard drive to back it up. Sadly, it was stolen pre-backup. I now have a PC that I'd like to get my ipod contents onto, so I can use them again in itunes. I've tried to download a number of ripper software, but none recognized my ipod, although my computer sees it and mounts it as a drive (not one it recognizes as formatted, though). Can I get my ipod recognized on my pc or do I need to borrow a friend's mac to ripe the itunes?
Thanks SO SO SO much,
Melissa

Posted by: meluk at March 22, 2007 7:03 PM

I think you're going to need to borrow a Mac, and *be careful* when you plug it in: iTunes will start up and want to reformat the iPod. Leave the iTunes warning message up and switch to Senuti so you can (hopefully) grab everything beforehand. Let us know how it goes.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 22, 2007 10:36 PM

I'd like to know how to put musics from the ipod to the computer without having a mac computer...
because senuti requires a mac computer..
thanks.

Posted by: Dani at March 23, 2007 1:20 PM

I'd like to know how to put musics from the ipod to the computer without having a mac computer...
because senuti requires a mac computer..
thanks.

Posted by: Dani at March 23, 2007 1:25 PM

u suck cuz i still dont understand and u made me more confused than i already am!!!! and worst of all my ipod dosnt have any music on it so tell me what the hell 2 do about it!!!!!

Posted by: Alexis Norwich at April 2, 2007 1:20 PM

How do I get my iPod playlist (of a 2+yrs 4GB system) from my brother's Dell laptop on to my newly purchased 4GB iPod Nano and an eMac without losing any information and/or spending any more money?

Posted by: KPS at April 3, 2007 6:22 PM

what about for a 7.0 i tunes library?

Posted by: bob at April 8, 2007 10:42 AM

I have been trying to transfer my ipod music onto a new macbook using senuti. Senuti initially recognizes the songs on the ipod, but before I can do anything it goes blank and basically ejects the ipod. Any theories?

Posted by: Misco at May 1, 2007 6:26 AM

My I pod video has all the songs on it, but the videos got deleted when i updated i tunes.... Now the i tunes has no songs, videos or anything in its library or anywhere, how can i safely put at least the 700 songs back onto my computer (fortunately, i still have my vids saved somewhere).

Posted by: Matt bee at May 7, 2007 6:53 PM

I dont have a mac.... no wonder NOTHING in that huge list worked..

Posted by: Matt bee at May 9, 2007 6:01 PM

I have an iPod Nano. A friend set it up on her Mac, but I have a PC. Am I able to reset my iPod Nano and set it up on my PC? If so, could you please advise how I do this? Thanks a million for your help.

Posted by: Kelly at June 3, 2007 7:19 PM

I have a big problem.
HELP!!!!
i downloaded all my songs from a MAC computer on my ipod. my ipods screen busted and i cant see my music
ALL I WANT BACK ARE MY SONGS!!!! i got them all from different people (on mac computers)
I HAVE A Dell Pc! is there ANY POSSSIBLE way i can put the songs on my ipod into my itunes on my pc?

Posted by: Bianca at June 30, 2007 8:14 PM

Hi dave i had about 2000 songs on my ipod accidently deleted when i plugged it into my friends itunes how do i find them and get them back onto my ipod

Posted by: Konner Morgan at July 16, 2007 12:24 AM

Hi,please help me,
I have the original Ipod Nano, and the problem is that the bottom half of the screen is entirely white, and I can't see it. Then I tried reseting it, letting it die, but it still wont go away. Then I removed all the songs, and now it will not allow me to add any at all. So now my nano is empty and half white...help?!?

Posted by: Megan at August 3, 2007 9:17 PM

Hello dave Senuti app works great between my imac and my macbook pro but sometimes im not with my laptop and im in another place with someone else computer a mac, so i dont have the installer with me or a internet connection to download it, so i checked your terminal method and is good but i dont see the files like with their default names i just see folders F00 F01 F02... and the names of the files is also like that. so i was wondering what is the command to copy all that folders inside Ipod_Control? to the desktop i tried but it says usage: cp [-R [-H | -L | -P]] [-f | -i | -n] [-pv] src target
cp [-R [-H | -L | -P]] [-f | -i | -n] [-pv] src1 ... srcN directory

thanxs a lot. wait for your response

Posted by: Alfredo at September 26, 2007 9:23 AM

Hi Dave. My ipod (4GB) was stolen a few weeks ago. I'm wondering if/how I can transfer my old library to a new ipod? Thanks!

Posted by: lauren kay at October 19, 2007 7:40 PM

I have the same problem as 117 (Jan 23 2007) in that the only way I can bring up the menus mentioned is by pluging in my i-pod (to a 4 year old e-mac) which automatically starts to sync before any of the icons appear. It is impossible to switch this off without plugging the ipod in, so is a bit of a catch 22. Had a practice (fortunately) with a spare ipod and unplugging it as soon as the sync starts wipes the whole ipod so DON'T ANYBODY ELSE TRY THAT! As only 90 of my 2000 songs are left on the library and the music file (required by senuti) won't transfer to the desktop either I'm thinking I may be re-burning all my CDs from now until Christmas (2008!)unless there are any other suggestions you might have. Many thanks Cazz

Posted by: C.L.A. at November 1, 2007 12:02 PM

Oh My GOD! Thanks SOOOOOO much for the info on Senuti! It's the best thing that could have ever happened to a guy whose HD and Logic Board died 2 days ago and has to DJ a wedding on a new computer at the end of the month!

What a wicked program!

Thanks!

Posted by: Shawn Trask at November 9, 2007 9:56 AM

Dear Dave,
I had a Dell computer that ran on Windows. It crashed the other day and I bought a new Mac. I lost my Library on my Dell. How can I transfer the songs from my Ipod(windows format) to my new Mac? I really don't want to lose anything!

Posted by: Fay at November 23, 2007 10:11 AM

I have followed all of the steps that you wrote down and everything is good until you say to drag the selected items to the Left column where the library is. It dosen't seem to want to drag over into the library. Why is it doing that?

Posted by: Hayley at December 26, 2007 11:04 PM

Hello Dave. I am trying to upgrade my parents computer to Leopard, from mac 3.9. I was trying to check the health of the hard drive by doing a disk utility check (on line I saw that you are supposed to do a "Disk Repair". Their computer would not allow me to to do this; I did, however, run a "repair disk permissions" and a "verify disk permissions". After running the repair and verify disk permissions it seems I uninstalled their microsoft office suite and in the process lost their entourage address book, some word documents and itunes music? Is there anyway to recover this stuff? And, sadly, little of it is backed up. P.S. I have not yet installed leopard.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Much!

Dave

Posted by: Dave J. at December 28, 2007 11:12 AM

Hi Dave. I downloaded Senuti on my new mac - my goal was to load my music and videos from my ipod onto my new mac. I couldn't seem to get this program to say what you said it would do. It wouldn't open up. Can you assist me. I really appreicate your willing to assist computer-challenged people like me with our issues.

Posted by: Ellen Klager at January 4, 2008 12:27 PM

ok so i followed ur directions at the top and the problem is that my itunes wont let me select the "select all" button or Ctrl A button, so i dont know how i can get my music from my ipod onto this new computer with a blank library....can u help me?

Posted by: Bobby Stacks at January 17, 2008 4:08 PM

Hi Dave,
I have a Mac integrated iPod. The problem is the mac I was using is now 100 miles away. I've read countless time that you cant transfer a Mac iPod to Windows...is this true...if not what free ware is available to help me with this transfer?

Posted by: Israel Lopez at February 2, 2008 7:43 PM

hi , please please help ! , i have a computer and a laptop , recently my computer totally screwed up and is no lomnger working , is there a way i can put all the songs i have on my ipod onto my laptop? i have thousands and i really dont fancy having to upload them all over again. please give me a step by step as im useless at this stuff
thank you so much for your help!

Posted by: reece at March 22, 2008 11:28 AM

this doesn't work with new macbooks

Posted by: ihateyou at April 13, 2008 9:59 AM

If this doesn't work, then the latest beta of Senuti (as I've written about elsewhere on my blog) definitely lets you copy from your iPod or even iPhone onto your new Macbook. And yes, I've tested it on my Macbook Air too. :-)

Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 13, 2008 11:13 AM

hey dave, i have a ipod with all my old music on it but most of it wasn't purchased in itunes is there anyway to get this music on to a new mac?

Posted by: david at April 20, 2008 2:07 PM

Thanks Xpod didnt work but the other one did. Your a life saver.

Posted by: kagell at April 30, 2008 6:00 PM

Hi Dave,
My PC completely died, and I am trying to get my itunes library retrieved.

I bought a Macbook, and would like to now transfer my songs onto the library... to at least salvage some of the money I've spent over the years on music!

Can I use my ipod which I was using on a PC, on a Mac? Can I transfer all my songs without losing everything?? the ones I bought on Itunes? the ones I downloaded?
ANY HELP WHATSOEVER WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!

Posted by: Amanda at May 6, 2008 3:34 PM

Hey, I accidentally deleted my songs from my Ipod, by doing sych. Is it possible to get it back?

Posted by: Cara at May 15, 2008 7:58 PM

Dave-
My hard drive on my macbook died and i lost EVERYTHING! I have been trying to put my songs from my ipod onto my itunes but i can't figure out how. Also, every time my try to turn on my ipod, a file with an exclamation point comes up. And when I try to plug in my ipod to my computer, it doesnt even show up on the itunes! Please help me!

Posted by: Leah at May 26, 2008 2:52 PM

Dear Dave,

I can't get the symbol of an ipod down the bottom of itunes window or on my itunes preferences, i recently sent my PowerBook G4 in for a new hard drive so i need to upload my ipod to the blank library, i read all other posts and can't see that anyone else has had this problems. Please help.

Posted by: Henry at May 30, 2008 1:16 PM

That app senuti does not work for me
tried downloading it around 5 times, it never worked
it says not responding everytime
any idea why? please help!

Posted by: hilda at July 5, 2008 6:54 PM

I have an iPod Touch and I transfered all my music to my Macbook Pro using Senuti- very user friendly

Posted by: Janela P at July 12, 2008 7:19 PM

Hilda I'd recommend clicking "show all" in the "featured download" section on the Senuti site and then make sure your attempting to use version 0.50.2b7.dmg. I also found it helpful to read all the links before attempting to use the program because there are several preferences you need to set before attempting to transer

Posted by: JanelaP at July 12, 2008 7:23 PM

This method will not work. I have never heard of this method working before. Perhaps for some of the extremely old, unprotected versions of itunes and the ipod. But that is the whole point of the difficulty of transferring songs between ipod and different computers.

Posted by: tech savvy at July 25, 2008 2:38 PM

i own a shuffle and i had a macbook pro, my shuffle was synced to the itunes on the macbook. but the macbook got stolen and now i need a way to transfer my music from my shuffle to the new mac, but the only options it gives me are to either erase and sync to the new itunes(which has no music) or to cancel. and when i press cancel it doesnt show the icon on itunes....

pls help me

Posted by: Masego at August 10, 2008 12:40 PM

Ok, sorry if this has already been answered.
but, today, i just transfered my itunes over to my new laptop. i went thru the steps that were given on ituns and my playlists, counts, and everything were still there. but when i go to play the songs, the little grey exclamation point pops up next to it, saying that the original file cannot be found. but...all of my music is in my music folder. i don't know what to do.

Posted by: Kristian at August 15, 2008 1:29 AM

Dave,
My father told me to insert the songs in my iTunes library into his iPod since his iPod has nothing in it, how do I do that??!?!!? I need the answer TODAY before 4:15!!!!!!!

Posted by: Mitchie at August 19, 2008 1:01 PM

Hi Dave

How can i download music for free from my second i mac computer which is in my i phone onto my itunes in my pc XP system?

Please help

Posted by: DHRUV at September 14, 2008 7:21 AM

dave,
i dont own a mac, i have an acer laptop
is there a program i can download for the ipod -> itunes transfer for it?

i see you havnt replied to questions since april 13th, but hopefully youll see this and be able to help me =)

thanks

Posted by: sprocket at September 18, 2008 5:01 PM

How do I transfer Music from any Ipod into my Computer?? I am trying to get my friends ;ist of songs into my Itunes. How do I do that??

Posted by: RAM at September 27, 2008 10:04 AM

Thanks SO MUCH! Senuti worked perfectly for me! (XPod did not). I now have my music off my iPod Touch and onto my "new" Mac.

Thanks again!

Posted by: Richard at October 18, 2008 2:15 PM

Dave... My mac powerbook G4 crashed and I tried to save my contacts from my address book and my Ical, but unfortunetly it didnt work. However they are still on my ipod. Is there any way that I can transfer them from my Ipod back to my laptop. Thanks

Posted by: Annette Harless at November 2, 2008 6:50 PM

For transferring songs/videos from iPod to Mac, I have used 4Media iPod/iPhone to MAC Transfer http://www.gutensoft.com/Utilities/4Media-iPod-to-Mac-Transfer.html
Slick. Never have to worry about the loss of hundreds of songs in iTunes in the event of a fatal computer crash again.
PS:It can not only help us transfer music, movie, photo library and playlists from ipod to mac, but also from mac to ipod, from ipod to itunes.

Posted by: Jane at November 12, 2008 2:04 AM

Hey Dave,

I want to put songs from my ipod, which was Windows formatted, to my Mac so I won't lose them. Then re-format the iPod to Mac and put everything back + add new material to the iPod. The songs are on a iPod classic. Thing is, I am using the iPod patch which changes iTunes version 1.1 so it will work on Mac OS 8.6. At this time the iPod does not show up in the Sources column of iTunes nor does it appear on my desktop. What's a guy to do?

Posted by: John Michals at November 28, 2008 1:51 PM

I just bought the Macbook and i have my i touch with more than 1,000 files, how can I copy them to my computer without erasing them.
The problem is that my itunes keep asking me if I want to Sync and erase. And I do want to sync but I not to erase.

Posted by: Diego Luna y Parra at December 12, 2008 8:10 AM

When tryng to transfer my tunes from my ipod to a new itunes library, it will not allow me to drop the selected songs into the library icon in the left colomn.

Posted by: jenny phillipson at December 27, 2008 11:35 AM

Just wanted to let you know, Senuti is fantastic and you should edit that to be the first answer that you have, since it seems like the original suggestion no longer works. My original itunes was on a pc, and I couldn't get my ipod to sync with a mac without losing all my songs and vice versa. Senuti transferred the over 300 songs on my ipod to my new itunes in a matter of 5 minutes, and it was a free trial too! A really great program- if I thought I would need it constantly I would even buy the full version!

Posted by: Kristen at December 29, 2008 6:45 PM

Hi Dave

Got a problem with a mac formatted ipod. When I plug it in to my pc , it wants to reformat the ipod before I can do anything? I really want to transfer all my ipod music on to my pc but keep hitting dead ends? any answers?

thanks

Greg

Posted by: GREG at February 2, 2009 3:31 AM

I have a MacBook Pro and my hard drive recently died. Unfortunatley I didn't have my data backed up so i lost everything (including my itunes library). Apple's ipod tech support told me that i would only be able to retrieve purchased songs from itunes. Unfortunately an overwhelming percentage of my songs weren't purchased from itunes, but rather just imported directly from the music cd's. My ipod still has all my songs on it, so is there any way to retrieve the non-purchased songs from my ipod and transfer it to my new itunes? Any help would be much appreciated!

Posted by: matt at February 5, 2009 2:59 PM

hey dave!, ive got my ipod installed in a windows computer but now ive got a mac so how can i do to download all my music in my ipod to my computer. When i open preferences of my ipod instead of showing me a little ipod it appears an icon that says playback! Thanks!

Posted by: paule at February 11, 2009 4:02 PM

Greg and Paule, I'm afraid you're hosed: Macs can read PC format hard drives, but PCs cannot read Mac formatted hard drives / iPods, as far as I am aware. You might need to find a friend with a Mac and a lot of spare disc space to copy everything off the iPod. Then format it on your PC, hook it up to your Mac and try using Senuti or similar to copy the tracks back.

Matt, again, something like Senuti should do the trick for you.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at February 16, 2009 7:21 AM

Hi Dave, I have a similar problem to Matt except that I downloaded my songs from the internet. I failed to backup my iMac and lost the entire music library in iTunes. Can I used the 'Manually managed songs and playlists' to restore my music in iPod classic back to iTunes in my iMac?
Your advice is very much appreciated!! Thanks.

Posted by: Rachel at March 2, 2009 4:55 PM

I have a 60gb click wheel iPod and was trying to back up the music on it to my external drive. It's formatted to windows when I used to have a PC. I used to use sharepod to transfer music from my ipod to the computer but I downloaded a trial version of Senuti which allowed me to transfer 1000 songs to a mac. I used the free trial and transferred 1000 songs, then I unplugged my iPod from my computer and the iPod doesn't think it has any songs or videos. When I plug the iPod back to the computer, itunes asks to restore the ipod to factory settings. If I check the iPod memory it says only 8gb free memory, so I think the songs are still there. I can still see the photos.

I don't know what to do. I really want the songs on there, my hard drive just died and I had to get a new one, so my only music files are on my iPod. The 1000 songs I transferred were fine, I'm not sure if I purchased the Senuti program, would it be able to recognize the data on the iPod. I also don't want to pay $18 for the Senuti program if the music is not recoverable because I'd have no music to transfer.

Posted by: lochiying at March 2, 2009 9:33 PM

I have got a new computer, and I want to transfer my Itunes library from my old computer to my new ine. However, when my old computer went away to be fixed, Itunes was deleted.
Now I have Itunes on my new computer, it won't sync because my Ipod is still connected to the library on my old computer.
So my question is, is there a way I can sync my Ipod on my new computer without transfering the library from my old computer.
Does this make sense?

Posted by: Cameron Burrows at March 13, 2009 6:01 PM

hi
i have a 2g sandisk memory card in my walkman sony ericsson but i cant put any of my music files onto it, i keep getting a message saying i need such & such more MB which i cant understand.
is there anything i need to do? i got the walkman fone specificly to listen to music, you can understand how annoying this is.
any help would be very much appreciated.
cheers

Posted by: JrS at March 18, 2009 12:29 PM

yeah it totally doesnt work when you try doing it with registered music.

Posted by: Bob Sage at April 25, 2009 3:53 PM

Dave, I bought my girlfriend a new iPod, and she gave me her old one - it's a 4GB 2nd generation nano. I am trying to connect it to my computer (I have an existing iTunes library) but it won't recognize her device in iTunes, yet it DOES recognize it on MyComputer/Explorer. Any tips? Thanks!

Posted by: Greg Scheurich at May 4, 2009 7:08 AM

Pod to PC and Pod to Mac are both 100% freeware and transfer music an iPod or iPhone back to your computer and into iTunes.

Posted by: Chris Devor at May 5, 2009 11:03 AM

hey Dave
i try downloading my photos and songs from different websites but they do not get downloaded on the desktop or anywhere on my pc !
please help me
thanks

Posted by: Stephanie at June 24, 2009 10:16 PM

hi dave

my friends old computer broke so he bought a new one but he went from windows to a mac.
he has over 5000 songs on his ipod from his old computer and wants them on his mac without deleting any other songs he has put on his mac
and if he syncs his ipod it will put his new songs on and delete his 5000+ songs.
i@m ok with computers but not an expert the only thing i could think of was to access his hard drive in a other computer and put his songs on a usb stick and the transfer them that way, but not sure if it was his hard drive that broke on his old computer in the first place.
hope u understand the situation and can u help out.

thanks for u time
wayne

Posted by: wayne at July 2, 2009 8:55 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









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