I’ve just bought a new Apple iPod Mini and am really excited about getting started loading my music onto it, but I can’t figure out how to do so! Windows Media Player can synchronize music with the iPod, but the iPod itself doesn’t then seem to know the music is there. HELP!
This is a surprisingly common question for new iPod owners who are using Microsoft Windows on their PC, and the basic answer is that you must use Apple iTunes to get music onto your iPod. Windows Media Player can see the iPod, but only as a hard disk, the section on the iPod where the music is stored is “hidden” and only iTunes knows how to get to it.
Let me take you through the steps of getting some music onto an Apple iPod with iTunes on a Windows XP system, then I’ll show you quickly why WMP can’t do the same thing.
The first time you plug your iPod into your PC via the included USB cable, you’ll probably see something like this:
What’s happened is that the underlying drivers for this class of device have been updated by Microsoft and the changes have been automatically applied – thankfully! – but you need to reboot. Do so, and then the next time you start up, your iPod will not generate any messages of this nature.
Now you really need to get a recent copy of iTunes onto your PC. There’s a CDROM that’s included with your iPod that has the iTunes program thereon, but if you don’t want to mess with that, you can simply go to apple.com/itunes to download the latest version.
The next step is to actually launch the iTunes program. If you don’t have the very latest version, you might well see this dialog window:
Generally, it’s a good idea to make sure you always have the latest version, so click “yes” and it’ll pop up your Web browser and take you directly to the download page, at which point you want to enter your email address, uncheck any boxes to skip certain types of email, and start the download:
I always uncheck these boxes, personally, as I already get too darn much email, but you might enjoy learning about free music available from the popular iTunes Music Store, etc., as indicated.
Either way, eventually you’ll be able to launch iTunes and have it start up, rather than ask you to do other stuff. At that point it will recognize the iPod that you’ve plugged in and step you through the registration process.
It’ll look like this:
You can stick with the default name for your device, but I always try to pick something more fun. For this 30GB iPod Video, I’m going to call it “MicroTV”, because, well, it’s a pretty tiny video screen. I also uncheck “automatically update music” because I like to control what happens to my iPod manually rather than have things magically occur and then not be what I want. You may find that having iTunes sync your iPod automatically works better for you, however.
When you’re done with this configuration step, click “Next” and you’ll see:
If you’re so inclined, register your iPod, or just click “Finish”.
Now, finally, you can see iTunes in all its glory:
All the colorful material in the middle is from the Apple iTunes Music Store. On the left side column, notice all the various categories of music and content, very similar to Microsoft Windows Media Player. Just below the Music Store, however, is what we seek. It says “MicroTV”, as that’s the name of my iPod.
Click on this entry, whatever name you’ve given your own iPod, and you’ll see your music list, which is completely blank:
Now click on the “Library” link also on the left column and you’ll see what albums or music you’ve ripped or otherwise copied into your iTunes library. If you haven’t ripped any CDs, put one into your computer and click on the “Import” button in iTunes that’ll show up.
On this particular computer, I’ve already ripped a few audio CDs, as you can see:
There’s a much nicer way to explore the music, however. Click on the “Browse” button on the top right (it looks like an all-seeing eye) and a new panel will show up that lists genre, artists and albums too:
I’m going to go ahead and copy my jazz album, by Jeff Lorber, onto my iPod. I do that by clicking on the “Jazz” genre, then dragging and dropping that onto the name of the iPod on the left side. Then I can see the music being copied onto the iPod itself:
Doesn’t take very long, and once it’s done, I can eject my iPod and start enjoying the tiny music player.
However, let’s have a quick peek at the basic iPod configuration while it’s still plugged in by clicking on the “iPod Preferences” button on the bottom of the window:
The preferences look like this:
You can probably leave them all as-is, but that’s how you get to them if you want to change anything about your iPod.
At this point we’re done. The easiest way to disconnect the iPod from your computer is to click on the little “eject” button, but before we do, let’s have a very quick look at how Windows Media Player sees the iPod and why it’s so darn hard to get music from WMP to an iPod.
WMP certainly doesn’t show a “MicroTV” option to make life easy. Click on the “Sync” button, however, and you’ll see that it can indeed see the iPod that’s plugged in:
This is deceptive, though, because the section of the iPod that holds the music that the iPod player itself can access isn’t what’s listed. The iPod can serve as a convenient and portable hard disk, and it’s that section of the device that WMP can access. Copy music and it’ll be accessible by another Windows system, but the iPod itself won’t see it. Not good!
To actually get music out of WMP and onto an iPod involves some conversion and fiddling around, as detailed here: Convert WMA into MP3 for use with iPods.
Let’s go back to iTunes, however, and eject the iPod. That’s done by clicking on the tiny upward triangle adjacent to the iPod name:
Now the device is disconnected and you can unplug it, plug in some headphones or earbuds and enjoy your music!
Working with the iPod Itself
The easiest way to do that? Push the play button once on your iPod to wake it up, and you’ll see this:
Now use the scrollwheel to highlight either “Playlists”, “Artists”, “Albums”, “Songs” or “Genres”, the push the button in the middle of the scrollwheel to select that choice:
I’ll select “songs”, and here’s what I see:
Now I can pick a specific song by again using the scrollwheel, then click “OK” (the button in the middle of the wheel) and the song starts playing:
And now, let’s relax with our own personal jam!
Hope that helps you get up to speed with the iPod. You’ll find it gets a lot easier to work with after a few minutes of fiddling around.
Your instructions were fool-proof. Thank you.
hey i have a ipod nano the long skinny one. but the 1st one that came out in that shape everytime i connect it to my laptop it wont pop up in itunes like my itouch does… watt do i do?
Vicky, that’s weird. Are you using a laptop for syncing? If so, I suggest you take both the laptop and iPhone into the Apple Store, after making an appointment with a “Genius”, so they can help you debug things. Might be a bad hardware connector on the phone if it’s not seen *at all* even while the iPod works fine.
Sandi, if they’re not on your iPod and the computer that had the source music isn’t available, I think you might be out of luck. So sorry!
I have a Apple Ipod 30GB (2006?). I was on Itunes today so long story short the Sync button got pushed and ALL my songs are gone!! How do I get them back? I don’t have access to the old computer I got them from..So I am at a loss..2,000+ songs! Please help!!
i have had an Ipod for 2.5 years, i have just got an Iphone and im having trouble putting music on it. i only have one computer so i have to used the one that my Ipod is connected to.when i plug the Ipod in, it works as normal, when i plug the Iphone in, it does nothing! please help!
i just got a ipod nani yesterday andi have some problems like it does not show my ipod nano on the left and when i got some songs on they disapeared and i dont kno what to do!! i have downloaded everthing u said!! please help me!!!!!
KAPIL, if you can’t drag songs onto your iPod it’s because you have sync already set up. Uncheck that option in iTunes and it’ll let you manage your music manually, but be aware that the first time you do it, iTunes will zealously wipe all the music off your iPod. Then just copy it back on. 🙂
Michael, the iPod shuffle doesn’t doesn’t have a ton of room. Sounds like you need a bigger one!
I have been importing songs from my CD collection on to my ipod shuffle but after about 100 odd tracks it is telling me there is insufficient space. Can I get an upgrade or do I have to buy a better ipod?
hi i do have apple i pod but i can not able drag the songs on the i pod please help me.
thank you,
you’re awesome for helping others.
you are so cool but that is not sayimg or answering my question bye thanks
I didn’t get all the options you received when i was registering my Ipod.
Some songs were imported, but now it seems like i can’t drag all my music, only once for a few songs, to my Ipod.
I hope you can help me.
thank you,
you’re awesome for helping others.
i cant copy my album to the ipod…
it does not gets copies and shows a “stop” symbol.
pls help !!!!!!!!!!!
I really need some help! I want to put some videos and music to n Ipod, but i don’t know how to do it! I really need some help on how to do it! Please contact me as soon as possible! Thank you!!!
hi i just bought a ipod touch and i download my music from 360 share but im having trouble getting the music to itunes to download to my ipod, if u could help me i would really appreciate it. thank you laini
I successfully downloaded an entire audio book from the library onto my Ipod shuffle 1st. gen. but can not play back from it. Could you tell me why?
will this give my computer a virus
Hi Dave! I just bought a new ipod nano gen 5 16g. I currently own a Nano 2nd gen 4g that I want to send to my sister in another state. Will she be able to plug it in to her computer and authorize it? Or will she need to have my password? I don’t want to share my itunes account with her. One other question. I accidently deleted the itunes program on my desktop. Will I have to reload the program to deauthorize that computer? or will it automatically no longer exist? I don’t want her to have any problems! Thanks!!!!
There actually is a way to put music from WMP to ipods.
http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/
Hi, I got my ipod nano not that long ago and i’m trying to add music to it ,but i dont know how. My music is in the music folder ,but i dont know how to get it on my ipod. Thanks
Heather, you do realize that memberareasite is an illegal site and everything you would get off it is in violation of copyright and licensing laws and puts you in a position where you could theoretically be sued by the MPAA or RIAA? More importantly, it also defrauds the artists that create the content and means that they can’t afford to create that next album, audio book or movie? I’d skip it and work with your own music CDs or the Apple iTunes Store, where you pay, but where the artists are compensated AND you have the license for the content.
help i have just brought i pod shuffle and have brought unlimeted downloads from memberareasite but cant seem to download anything even from apple down load do i have to have a different disk in my laptop to be abble to store music ?sorry to sound daft but i am a conplete begginer to thr pc !
I’m downloading a song (July Flame) on my iPod Touch, but there’s an error with downloading that I can’t fix. Because of the error, iTunes keeps asking for my password to retry. How can I cancel the download?
iPodCopy isn’t regonizing my iPod, do you know whats the problem?
Thanks Dave, that made it so easy to put music files on the ipod. Wish the idiots at Apple had half the sense you did on explaining how to use their expensive little box. Thanks alot bro,..you’re the Man!
you helped me a whole lot …cause i had no ideal what i was doing ..and if yu wernt not here ..i think i would have an ipod with no music lol Thank you soo much
Jorgiana, you’ll need to download all the music from your iPod onto your computer (try Senuti or ipodcopy, both third party apps), import all the music into your iTunes library, then let iTunes do a restore on the iPod. Once that’s done resync with all the music and let it copy everything back on. A pain, but it’ll solve the problem.
AdRtist, plug your iPod into a computer running iTunes (ideally the computer your’e going to always be using with the iPod to manage its content) and choose “Restore”. It’ll wipe it clean.
I would like to reformat my ipod how do I clear it out I do not have the original CD?
I have an ipod nano that already has tons of music on it.
I do not want to delete the music on my ipod.
But when i logged onto itunes it said my ipod needed to be restored and updated.
so how do i put music on it without updating to the new updates ?
Hi Dave, My partner has an ipod shuffle and has purchased songs from itunes store, howeverwhen he tries to sync them to the ipod it wont let him, any idea’s?? Cheers!
i love you you are the only one hows advice helped your awsome
dear dave taylor
I followed your steps and you were talking about importing but can’t find that import button!
sincerly Nicole Tucker
Patricia, sometimes iTunes isn’t set as the default program for an iPod when plugged in. Easily sidestepped: launch iTunes THEN plug in your iPod and give it 30 seconds or so…
Kaelyn, it doesn’t matter how your iPod was loaded with music. To make your life simple, you need to “pair” it with a single computer. When you do that, it’ll wipe the iPod clean and restore it. Beforehand, run a third-party app like iPodCopy or Senuti and pull all the music that you want to keep off the device.
1 more question how do u like redo ur data like ur name and stuffon my ipod nano. plz send me and email soon
I have a ipod nano. My friends parents downloaded songs on it. Half of them suck. I want to delete most of them. I have looked up all the other websites they say do this do that about itunes. But my friends parents didnt use itunes they downloaded songs from there comuter to my ipod. how do u delete them. plz send me an email back so i can get these deleted plz i need help…
Actually, you certainly do not need to use iTunes to put music on your iPod. You can you use any other music/vid converter; windows xp, media monkey, etc…
What do I do if iTunes does not recognize my iPod when I launch it? I’ve got the music into iTunes, but can’t transfer it to the iPod. The window that you show above doesn’t come up. Help Please!
hey i have no clue how to download songs on my ipod cuz i try and try and it cant work my dad told maybe my cousin knows how to download songs so she did it for me! butshe didnt put all the songs cuz she was busy so i wanted to try it my self but i couldnt! so my sis said i pods suck! and she said i should get a dsi and i got a dsi !some one plz tell me how to contorl a dsi now omg i am not an expert of electornics! well thats all i have to to say bye!ps my ipod i was talking about is a ipod touch and i am 11 years old!and my dsi is pink.oh yeah and i had to pay a lot of money for my ipod touch and dsi with my allonce cuz its my ipod and dsi so it has to be from my money cuz my parents dont want to pay for it! omg not fair! k bye ppl!and i have msn and internet on my ipod touch! k bye ppl and if u read this plz post a note saying i read sarah harbs note and tell me wat u think about my story! bye!
i have music i downloaded with a legal site and its on windows player and i dont know how to put the music i have on the player on itunes which i have downloaded. can you help?
i don’t have a cd drive in my laptop so i can’t rip cds. i’ve now downloaded songs on limewire.i can’t get the songs onto itunes. how do i get the songs onto itunes.
Hi,
I just got a new nano and saved the songs in the wrong part of the nano, from your guidance above i managed to get the music in the right place however the music that i originally saved is still on the nano taking up space and i dont know how to delete it….
Can you please tell me how to?…
Thank you.
Elizabeth
Sandy, check Apple’s site again: they should definitely have a Win7 compatible version of iTunes available by now. Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Payton, you’ll lose what you have on the iPod, but click on “Restore” when it’s hooked up to your Mac and it’ll wipe it and reconfigure it to be Mac friendly.
I used my i-pod on a windows computer and we got a mac and it says Format: Windows how do i get it to say Format: Mac?
i have windows 7 and i tried downloading i tunes but its not compatible with it what do i do
i really enjoyed your website and think this is a great place to gather info.
when i put pictures on my ipod apple and after that put pictures again my old pictures deletes
I bought an ipod that worked for seven months and it stopped working. I downloaded the software from the disc that came with the ipod but they don’t work and after that I downloaded the new version following your link but the is no change in my ipod. PLEASE HELP !!!! I love my ipod.
thank you dude
but one more thing. I have Winamp for music player, and not WMP, it does the same as the WMP? “sees” the iPod as a hard disk or it “sees” it like a normal usb pen?
greetings in a hope to receive a answer
stay good
I have a question. how do can i put a mp3 file on my ipod?
My ipod only stays on while plugged into the comp. Ive had it for over 2 years and have never been able to use it. I’ve tried resetting it however, it goes back to doing the same thing. I was able to put music on it and I can hear it but only while plugged in. please help.
Thanks
dear sir,
Recently I purchased an original Apple ipod which has the capacity of 20 GB. As I am very new with the itunes software, I am unable to add songs, photos or videos to my ipod. would you please help me out with it.