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How do I copy music onto my Mac from my husband's iPod?

Alright, Dave. I'm darn frustrated. My husband and I both have Macs and he also has an iPod -- that I bought him! -- but when I plug his iPod into my Mac, I can see the music in iTunes and can even listen to it, but I can't copy it into my own iTunes library. What's wrong, and how do I fix it?

Dave's Answer:

Actually, this is a common problem with iPods, believe it or not, even those where you buy a new computer and want to "pair" your iPod with your new computer: by design, Apple iPods bond with a single Macintosh or PC, and every other computer is then only granted "read only" access, just as you've found.

The fact that it's your music and you probably have all the CDs sitting on the shelf (like we do) is irrelevant as far as Apple is concerned.

Fortunately, there are third-party workarounds for this copy protection design aspect of the otherwise splendid iPod players. If you were on a PC, I'd point you to a slick Windows application called iPodCopy, as I explain in my article How do I get songs off my iPod, but since you're on a Mac, I'm going to recommend a different program, one that's freeware, not shareware.

The program I use when trying to sync music between my iPods and computers (and, yes, my wife's computer too) is Senuti. It's free, which is splendid, but I nonetheless highly encourage you to donate a few bucks to support the developer if you find this app useful, as I'm sure you will.

Download the application, plug in your husband's iPod, then launch. You'll see something like this:

Copying Music off the iPod with Senuti 1

Notice that in this instance, I have a lot of audio books. Your list will doubtless differ. On the top left you'll see that the iPod itself is shown as "Library" while the iTunes library on the computer is shown as "iTunes". I found this a bit confusing and kinda wish that the iPod was listed by name, but it's an easy oddity to get used to.

A much more important step with Senuti is that you must change the preferences in the program to behave as desired. For reasons I'm unclear about, the defaults aren't close to what I would think people copying music from an iPod into iTunes would want. Here are the default settings:

Copying Music off the iPod with Senuti 2

and here are the changes I suggest you make:

Copying Music off the iPod with Senuti 3

Notice that I have also specified that copied music should be saved directly in the iTunes Music Library along with anything else ripped from CDs, so it's all neat and organized.

Now it's about as easy as it could be: pick the music you'd like to copy onto your computer and either just click the "Copy" button on the top right or drag it all onto the "iTunes" icon on the top left list and let Senuti do all the heavy lifting.

Here's what it looked like partway through copying some of my Celtic music onto my wife's computer:

At this point I found it easiest to simply quit iTunes and restart the program, so it saw all the new music in the library:

Music Copied off the iPod with Senuti in iTunes

Very nice, simple and straightforward, once you adjust the preferences as needed.

I think that'll help you and your husband more easily share music between your computers. Good luck!

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Comments

Every time I have asked a qestion involving electronics, from my iPod to my PSP, Dave has never failed me in explaining a solution. The pictures really help to.

Posted by: Alicia at April 12, 2006 3:29 PM

The Senuti link moved... its here now:

http://fadingred.org/senuti/

Thanks for the reviews

Posted by: Jonathan Dear at June 4, 2006 2:23 PM

I believe I have followed your directions, but I cannot select music to copy, it is all deselected and I am not able to highlight any songs on the itunes screen I'm trying to import to my mac. Any suggestions?

Bill

Posted by: Bill at October 8, 2006 10:07 PM

does this software still work if i copied my brother in law's PC iTunes library and want to put the songs onto my MAC iTunes?

thanks,
shelly

Posted by: shelly Tulloch at April 4, 2007 4:48 PM

I did use ipodcopy and it trnsferred my music to itunes but when I try to play music off of itunes the speaker shows it is playing but no sound is coming out . Any suggestions Thanks Rich

Posted by: Richard at September 28, 2007 8:36 AM

THANKS DAVE, THIS ADVICE WAS THE BEST!! I just got a new mac and my ipod was windows-formatted. i didnt know what to do until i came across your site.

Posted by: sid at October 17, 2007 2:53 PM

HI- I dowloaded and used senuti and it was great for about 2300 songs, but for some reason it refuses to copy the last 198 songs.

They vary from some I have on CD (no problem just time) to some I paid for in Itunes to some that I recorded with a mic on my ipod. Some of each of these types of items copied no problem. So now I am stuck...

I am especially concerned about the ones I recorded with a mic beccause they are not replaceable. I am a musician and these are either live performances, rehearsals, or new compositions I was working on...

Help

Posted by: Deirdre Bergeron at April 22, 2008 2:10 PM

Thanks a lot Dave!!

I have both a Mac and PC.

With my PC, I use CopyTrans to copy my music off my iPhone 3G.

No glitch at all.

Posted by: Will at November 3, 2008 2:32 AM

WOW awesome, thank you so much. alot easier than i thought it would be, this is very helpful.

Posted by: Andrew at December 2, 2008 1:19 PM

Thnaks so much for this Dave, sorted the problem in a tick.

Posted by: Lukescape at March 22, 2009 8:29 AM

HI Dave. I have a Mac, and, i downloaded songs online and saved them in VLC software, now, i can't transfer them to i tunes. how can i do that?, have been on it for ages now. the windows media player version is 9 ofcourse.
HELP ME DAVE

Posted by: arooj at May 4, 2009 12:48 PM

I have a Bose Lifestyle 48 system. Is it possible to download my Music Library I have on this system to Itunes on my Macbook?

Posted by: John at May 16, 2009 8:26 AM

Hey Dave!
This is awesome info, but I'm curious about one thing:
If I'm buying someone an ipod and use my PC to sync my original songs onto it as a gift, will she be able to copy my songs into her Mac itunes library, and from there transfer her NEW library (including both her songs and my songs) back onto the ipod?

basically, would this method still work if the man in the problem above were to have a PC?

Posted by: Stephanie at July 27, 2009 6:44 AM

Can I burn a disc of my purchased iTunes (on my PC) that will be playable on my CD players? I've tried, but the resulting disc is only playable on my PC.

Posted by: AC at August 24, 2009 9:10 AM

right i had 198 songs on my ipod and i presed restore i now have 3 how do i get my songs back

Posted by: damon at January 2, 2010 5:16 AM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

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

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