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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Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 4112, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: apple ipod, ipod, mac os x, senuti, xpod
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Reader Comments To Date: 153

Simon said, on August 10, 2005 8:46 PM:

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

Dave Taylor said, on August 10, 2005 8:58 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...

Dave Taylor said, on August 11, 2005 12:27 AM:

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.

tim david said, on August 19, 2005 3:57 PM:

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

George said, on August 23, 2005 11:17 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.

Dave Taylor said, on August 23, 2005 11:21 PM:

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

Jerry Mcclendon said, on September 25, 2005 7:26 AM:

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.

al said, on October 6, 2005 3:52 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.

Daniel said, on October 27, 2005 5:13 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?

ellie said, on December 12, 2005 5:30 PM:

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

Fabio said, on January 10, 2006 1:29 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?

Jake said, on January 19, 2006 6:52 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

Irl Smith said, on January 20, 2006 6:50 AM:

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.

Pam said, on January 24, 2006 6:36 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.

LOUIE said, on February 5, 2006 2:03 PM:

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

Dave Taylor said, on February 5, 2006 11:05 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

Matt said, on February 22, 2006 6:02 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

Dave Taylor said, on February 23, 2006 12:23 AM:

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?

Irl Smith said, on March 12, 2006 9:43 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

Sarah said, on April 9, 2006 5:41 PM:

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.

Ani said, on June 19, 2006 8:20 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?

nick said, on July 11, 2006 9:40 AM:

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

Dave Taylor said, on July 11, 2006 9:12 PM:

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

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

Natalie R. said, on October 15, 2006 10:26 AM:

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.

KaJa said, on November 14, 2006 1:45 PM:

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?

Crystal said, on December 3, 2006 4:16 AM:

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!!!

mia said, on December 24, 2006 2:28 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.... <<<

l17 said, on January 23, 2007 7:19 PM:

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.

Dave Taylor said, on January 23, 2007 8:04 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.

Liene said, on January 28, 2007 4:59 AM:

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.

kate said, on January 31, 2007 2:20 PM:

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 :)

Mike Bates said, on February 11, 2007 3:05 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

Diane Fink said, on March 6, 2007 1:50 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!

meluk said, on March 22, 2007 7:03 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

Dave Taylor said, on March 22, 2007 10:36 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.

Dani said, on 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.

Dani said, on March 23, 2007 1:25 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.

Alexis Norwich said, on April 2, 2007 1:20 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!!!!!

KPS said, on April 3, 2007 6:22 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?

bob said, on April 8, 2007 10:42 AM:

what about for a 7.0 i tunes library?

Misco said, on May 1, 2007 6:26 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?

Matt bee said, on May 7, 2007 6:53 PM:

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).

Matt bee said, on May 9, 2007 6:01 PM:

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

Kelly said, on June 3, 2007 7:19 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.

Bianca said, on June 30, 2007 8:14 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?

Konner Morgan said, on July 16, 2007 12:24 AM:

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

Megan said, on August 3, 2007 9:17 PM:

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?!?

Alfredo said, on September 26, 2007 9:23 AM:

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

lauren kay said, on October 19, 2007 7:40 PM:

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!

C.L.A. said, on November 1, 2007 12:02 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

Shawn Trask said, on November 9, 2007 9:56 AM:

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!

Fay said, on November 23, 2007 10:11 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!

Hayley said, on December 26, 2007 11:04 PM:

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?

Dave J. said, on December 28, 2007 11:12 AM:

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

Ellen Klager said, on January 4, 2008 12:27 PM:

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.

Bobby Stacks said, on January 17, 2008 4:08 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?

Israel Lopez said, on February 2, 2008 7:43 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?

reece said, on March 22, 2008 11:28 AM:

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!

ihateyou said, on April 13, 2008 9:59 AM:

this doesn't work with new macbooks

Dave Taylor said, on April 13, 2008 11:13 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. :-)

david said, on April 20, 2008 2:07 PM:

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?

kagell said, on April 30, 2008 6:00 PM:

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

Amanda said, on May 6, 2008 3:34 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!!!!

Cara said, on May 15, 2008 7:58 PM:

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

Leah said, on May 26, 2008 2:52 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!

Henry said, on May 30, 2008 1:16 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.

hilda said, on July 5, 2008 6:54 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!

Janela P said, on July 12, 2008 7:19 PM:

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

JanelaP said, on July 12, 2008 7:23 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

tech savvy said, on July 25, 2008 2:38 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.

Masego said, on August 10, 2008 12:40 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

Kristian said, on August 15, 2008 1:29 AM:

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.

Mitchie said, on August 19, 2008 1:01 PM:

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!!!!!!!

DHRUV said, on September 14, 2008 7:21 AM:

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

sprocket said, on September 18, 2008 5:01 PM:

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

RAM said, on September 27, 2008 10:04 AM:

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??

Richard said, on October 18, 2008 2:15 PM:

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!

Annette Harless said, on November 2, 2008 6:50 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

Jane said, on November 12, 2008 2:04 AM:

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.

John Michals said, on November 28, 2008 1:51 PM:

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?

Diego Luna y Parra said, on December 12, 2008 8:10 AM:

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.

jenny phillipson said, on December 27, 2008 11:35 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.

Kristen said, on December 29, 2008 6:45 PM:

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!

GREG said, on February 2, 2009 3:31 AM:

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

matt said, on February 5, 2009 2:59 PM:

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!

paule said, on February 11, 2009 4:02 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!

Dave Taylor said, on February 16, 2009 7:21 AM:

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.

Rachel said, on March 2, 2009 4:55 PM:

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.

lochiying said, on March 2, 2009 9:33 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.

Cameron Burrows said, on March 13, 2009 6:01 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?

JrS said, on March 18, 2009 12:29 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

Bob Sage said, on April 25, 2009 3:53 PM:

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

Greg Scheurich said, on May 4, 2009 7:08 AM:

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!

Chris Devor said, on May 5, 2009 11:03 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.

Stephanie said, on June 24, 2009 10:16 PM:

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

wayne said, on July 2, 2009 8:55 AM:

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

taylor said, on July 12, 2009 9:31 AM:

my only problem is that i dont have the little ipod icon. i just got a new mac and i wanted to copy my songs from my ipod back to my itunes library. but i dont want to download any software plzzzzz help!

Don said, on July 14, 2009 2:03 AM:

My windows pc would not work any more and unluckily all my iTunes files are there.
I just bought a mac laptop and I had been searching an easy way for moving all my 3000 songs over to my new iTunes library.
I could not find a way until my friend told me that: as long as all songs are still on the iPod, we can copy those songs onto the new computer and iTunes. The only thing we need is an iPod to mac transfer program like the app at ipod-tool.com

cara said, on July 26, 2009 1:29 AM:

also, i've heard if you reformat the ipod, but reformatting includes erasing all my music, that i had on the former windows. is there any other way i can send my windows formatted ipod music to my mac without reformatting?

Steve said, on August 3, 2009 12:47 AM:

xPort (xtremsoft.com) is an excellent little program that will pull your files off of your iPod and put them back on your computer.

rebekah said, on August 4, 2009 10:01 AM:

dave,
my ipod was synced to the itunes account on my mac but our mac crashed and everything was cleaared . now we have a new i tunes account i think and i can no longer put on or take any music off my ipod without clearing all my music off it ! please help ! thanks!

claire said, on August 11, 2009 5:55 AM:

Dave,
I just bought a mac book, and with it came a brand new (and free!) ipod touch. i already have a 3g ipod video with years worth of music on it. this ipod video is authorized to a library on a pc, (which is still working and accessible) however the itunes library on the pc does not contain all of the music the ipod does, because it is probably the third library i've had to make. how do i get ALL of my music from that ipod onto my mac, or atleast onto my rad new ipod touch without screwing anything up????

Dave Taylor said, on August 15, 2009 8:33 AM:

Rebekah, you want to grab something like Senuti or similar and use that to copy the music from your iPod onto your computer, then, yes, you DO need to let iTunes erase your iPod and start over. Then you copy that music back (since Senuti will have already put it into your iTunes library).

Claire, I'll give you the same answer. You need to use some of these third-party tools to grab all of your music off your old iPod Video and get it into your iTunes library, then you can redo things.

armando said, on August 31, 2009 10:57 PM:

hey how do i transfer all my macs info music and all into my macbook pro with mobile me..

Romino said, on September 1, 2009 1:19 AM:

Want to rip music from iPod to Mac? Lose your iTunes Library when Mac computer crashed? As you know, As iTunes keep us from transfer files from iPod to iTunes, we have to turn to a third party transfer software. I'd like to recommend this iPod Rip for Mac.

Kevin said, on September 8, 2009 3:18 PM:

I recently got a windows running hp laptop for college, and I have my ipod that was programed to my mac computer that I can't access right now at home.

Is there any possible way to get all my music from my ipod onto my itunes on my new hp without blanking my ipod and ruining it?

Robyn said, on September 26, 2009 5:36 AM:

With the Mac Powerbook G4 and iTunes 9 I cannot transfer my music from my ipod to the itunes libary.

Harley said, on December 4, 2009 8:31 PM:

I have the newest version of iTunes and the 2nd newest ipod version. I cannot find the buttons that you have said. Is there something wrong?

Harley said, on December 7, 2009 3:37 AM:

I used this program to rip the items from my ipod to my itunes on mac. http://thelittleappfactory.com/irip/ Download it and it rips it automatically after you open it!!! its great!!!

Mazza64 said, on December 12, 2009 12:39 PM:

My boyfriends friend downloaded some music onto an ipod for him. I am now trying to download onto itunes put it's not showing up. Anything I can do.
Thanks

Rachel said, on December 25, 2009 9:16 PM:

All you have to do is go on iTunes with your device plugged in -File-Transfer Purchases from "Name of iPod" and there you go!

Mike said, on December 27, 2009 1:57 PM:

When I used my iPod to move my music from a PC to my new Mac computer the playlists did not show up on the my new Mac, but all the music did show up. Anyone know why that may have happened? and any possible solutions?

Catie Wilken said, on January 5, 2010 9:18 PM:

I can't find the icon that looks like a little iPod on my iTunes. I've opened the iPod section on there, I just don't see any icons in the right corner or anywhere that look like an iPod. Will it work on the newer versions of iTunes?

jasmin said, on January 17, 2010 4:23 PM:

hi, my old ipod wass toeln now i have a new one, i have a new computer and my ipod was stolen over a year ago. can i find the songs i had on my old itunes account or on my old ipod? if so how? i dont remeber any of my information that i logged onto my old itunes with.and i just created a new itunes account. please help!

Juan said, on January 17, 2010 6:17 PM:

Dave,
I connected my ipod and opened my Itunes but at the bottom right there's no icon like a tiny ipod. I can't do much without this, where can I find this little icon?

Oli said, on January 23, 2010 12:59 AM:

Hi
Today i plugged in my ipod touch and it says itunes cannot read the contents of the ipod. Go to the summary box and restore your ipod but i dont want to do that because all my data will be gone. Most of my songs are from my friends computers. If you could help it would be greatly appreciated.

Dave Taylor said, on January 23, 2010 8:37 AM:

You want to use something like iPodCopy or Senuti (depending on what OS you're running) to copy everything off your iPod onto your computer, then let iTunes reformat your iPod, then copy the music back on. Problem permanently solved.

Mariah said, on February 14, 2010 12:59 PM:

I guess i have the new itunes software and i tried using your method listed above and i do not have all the buttons that you say to press. For example, i do not have the tiny ipod symbol in the bottom right corner. What do i do from there?

And also, how can i move songs that i didnt purchase from itunes onto my Mac Laptop. Because it is only letting me transfer my purchased songs but the majority of my songs werent purchased from itunes. PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks.

Erica said, on February 16, 2010 1:32 PM:

Hey Dave,
My computer recently crashed with my entire itunes library on it. My ipod has all my songs and I got a new Windows 7 laptop. How can I transfer the music from my ipod to windows. On the windows explorer I can't find the 'tools' tab when I plug my ipod in. Please help!

Sunshine said, on March 6, 2010 8:14 PM:

So I've read and re-read the original instructions, but I cannot for the life of me find the little tiny iPod icon. Has iTunes changed since the instructions were posted? What should I click on instead?
Thank you,
Sunshine

Michael Long said, on March 12, 2010 10:42 AM:

I wanted to clear out an old external hard drive so I unplugged my current one, plugged in the old one and performed the necessary work. However, when I plugged in the current hard drive, my computer doesn't recognise it any more as being the source of my musid etc. How can I solve this?
Thanks
Michael

Peter Billman said, on March 12, 2010 11:52 PM:

hey....i tried a few downloads and none were doing what i wanted until i came across SENUTI.COM works extremely fast and transferred them straight to Itunes. Recommended completely and 5 out of 5 stars easily. All you have to do is hold down and select all your songs and click transfer and its done. DOWNLOAD IT!

kobi said, on March 18, 2010 3:43 PM:

If you're using itunes version 8 and you got your music from the itunes store theres an option under file called transfer purchases from "(name of your ipod)"

Justin Flavin said, on April 15, 2010 11:42 AM:

How do I send music from my Mac to my Ipod?

Dave Taylor said, on April 15, 2010 11:56 AM:

You have to use iTunes for that task, getting the music from your Mac to your IPod. Should be how you're already doing it, actually. I have lots of iPod help here, btw, just search for "iPod".

yehia zalat said, on May 1, 2010 9:58 AM:

download pod to mac
it was installed on my mba

Kerri said, on May 6, 2010 9:47 PM:

Wow, thanks for the original advice and the suggestion to use Senuti. I was terrified of losing my music from very old ipod after computer hard disc died. I nearly bought a new ipod just to have something to play new music on, leaviing old one as cd library. But now it's all in my itunes library! Yay.Thanks again.

hanna said, on May 23, 2010 8:14 PM:

Copy the iTunes folder which has all the data you need (music, album art, apps etc) and then paste it to User/Music/iTunes before launching iTunes for the first time, or you need to hit up Google and download a third-party utility. iPod Rip for Mac could help too.

Jessica said, on May 24, 2010 12:41 AM:

I would use MobileMe for contacts and stuff like that. If you want to sync two computers itunes so they have the same songs and everything, you might wana try something called SyncPod.
http://www.video-converter-mac.org/ipod-to-mac-transfer/

Pixie said, on June 4, 2010 1:54 PM:

Hi, my pc laptop broke a while ago and my whole music library is on my ipod. It wasn't backed up anywhere unfortunately. Anyhow, i wanted to put all of my music from my ipod onto my new mac's itunes, and i couldn't find the "ipod icon" at the bottom right of the itunes window that you referred to in your initial instructions. Any help would be really appreciated, thanks.

Vannah said, on June 26, 2010 6:58 PM:

Everybody just use expod.

Jake said, on June 30, 2010 10:12 PM:

expod actually worked fast too, thanks Vannah

Erin said, on July 21, 2010 7:33 PM:

SENUTI did the trick!!! thank you

MM said, on September 7, 2010 2:56 PM:

If you have a nano, there should be an ipod nano icon on your desktop when you connect it. There is a hidden folder called Ipod_Control in the root directory of your nano, and in that folder you'll find the music folder that you were looking for. I copied that to my desktop and imported it afterwards in itunes.

To show hidden files :
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
(write no instead of yes to turn it off)

Marco A. Bravo said, on September 21, 2010 11:52 AM:

I recommend http://www.headlightsoft.com/detune/ to copy music from ipod to mac. Regards!

Natalie said, on December 15, 2010 2:44 PM:

Dave, A million thanks....I found an old ipod with classics and for the past couple of days was saddened to find out I couldn't easily transfer my old ipod to my new mac. Thanks for suggesting to download Senuti. Im soooo happy now. The transfer was successful and now i permanently have the program for $18 (one time fee). Now, Im going to upload my friends ipod and keep adding to my library......Much Thanks!!!!

Meinig said, on March 3, 2011 5:01 PM:

Transfer songs from ipod to mac, go to this CNET address http://www.cnet.com/1990-7899_1-6488385-1.html, and follow the easiest steps, which is the basic Mac DOS code to view you ipod as a hard drive, which enables you to easily copy your songs from your ipod to the itunes music folder on your hard drive. Free and legal!

David Barrett said, on March 12, 2011 11:47 PM:

I didn't get very far. After waiting for the do not disconnect for half an hour, I forced quit itunes which was not responding, but now the macbook's itunes is empty

iMacChicks said, on March 20, 2011 12:19 AM:

I couldn't get any of these tips on how to get it to work (including from other sites) so thought I'd give some of the programs a go that are advertised/suggested on here... So far 'IM TOO POD WORKS' does NOT work - after install, it recognised my iPod, but said it had no audio files on it, but that there was nearly 8GB of 'Other' files, which it supposedly couldn't read. It then spazzed out when my internet disconnected breifly, saying that for the program to work, it needs internet... suss, considering the program is taking files from an ipod to the computer, which shouldnt need internet access...
I'm still trying other programs, but thought I'd send out a warning!

iMacChicks said, on March 20, 2011 12:48 AM:

Detune works a treat

calebm said, on May 27, 2011 12:16 PM:

If you bought the song from iTunes, then when you sync your ipod there is an option to "Transfer Purchases." I did this, and it worked fine, but only transferred those that I bought from iTunes.

Abhishek said, on June 23, 2011 5:22 PM:

Hi Dave

I have a video that i took from my ipod 4g cud u plz tell me how can i transfer into my mac or my iphone 4

Elli said, on June 28, 2011 8:30 AM:

Hey, some days ago I read somewhere that xPort (formerly a commercial app), to copy iPod music to Mac, is no available for free: http://www.copytrans.net/xport.php It doesn't support the iOS devices but seems to work great with older iPod models (it copied all music from my iPod nano 4G back to the Mac).

BK said, on July 22, 2011 9:47 PM:

Dave - I have a ton of music on my DELL PC and my Nano. Most of which was not purchased from the itunes store, but downloaded off other sites, copied from my own cd collection, etc. I bought an iphone and was able to get all my music on that device as well. My DELL PC has since crashed and burned, and bought a new MAC. I have logged into my itunes acct, and of course i am missing a bunch of music. Am I able to take music off of my iPhone or my Nano and download into iTunes on my Mac?

Susan said, on September 18, 2011 10:04 PM:

Dave, THX :-). Works fine. And I get another transfer from my friend, iDeer iPod to Mac Transfer, it easy to work too, maybe you can try it (you can mail to them and ask for a free license key): http://www.ideerapp.com

amanda said, on December 27, 2011 2:51 AM:

Okay, I tried to do this but I can't find the music that's on my iPod touch in my mac computer (OS X 10.7). I have the iTunes library that is in sync with my iPod on another computer that I am not in possession of anymore. I have some new music on this computer which is not in my iPod, so what I want to do is to put the music on this computer into my iPod without removing what's already there. I am so confused! I've tried to fix this for a very long time and it's driving me nuts! If you can help me, please answer ASAP.

Dave Taylor said, on December 27, 2011 8:35 AM:

Amanda, you need to do this in the right order, it's not difficult.

1. Using a utility like Senuti, pull every song off your iPod and add it to your iTunes music library on your computer. (see this article for details on how to do that)

2. Once you've confirmed that worked select all the music in iTunes, including the old stuff and the new songs, then let iTunes erase your iPod. It'll wipe everything, but then it'll actually copy all the music back INCLUDING the new stuff.

3. Done.

AdamB said, on February 22, 2012 3:33 PM:

Great website - what's the best free service / application for transferring from ipod to mac now.

I found iRip which charges as does Senuti - any other suggestions.

Thanks

felice fraraccio said, on March 6, 2012 7:47 AM:

how do you go from mac to iPod and not iPod to mac?

ptolemy said, on March 19, 2012 4:01 PM:

Hey Dave
You're very patient. I'm impressed. Good work.

mariah_lewis said, on July 31, 2012 7:59 PM:

I use copytoy to transfer music, videos, playlists and photos from ipod, iphone and ipad to mac and PC. More detail information at http://www.candysoft.com.

Hallie Freedman said, on October 25, 2012 10:17 AM:

It doesn't let me copy and drag my itunes files to the library. I can select all and drag them but it will not allow me to drop the files from the ipod into itunes. Help!!

Geoff C said, on November 13, 2012 10:31 AM:

All this worked fine transferring iTunes registered tracks from a new Mac Air running iTunes 10.7 to my old iPod Classic. Simple drag and drop no probs, even with a new iTunes registration on the Mac! You would expect iTunes to block this but it just worked!.

Thanks Dave.

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

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