Copy Music and Transfer Files From Your iPod to Your Mac

on Blog •November 1st•
I know it was Halloween weekend but Saturday sure was a scary day!  When I went to backup my files to my external hard-drive, I realized I was missing some 80+GB of music.  What?! 🙁  

Luckily I didn't really lose my music because I had saved another copy on a separate external hard-drive.  It's always a good idea to [try] to keep two backups – better safe than sorry! Still nonetheless, for a moment I still thought I had lost my music and tried to think about possible solutions.  I remembered that all of my new music from the last 2 years was in my iTunes and I also that my favorite 30GB of music were still on my iPod.  First goal is a positive mental attitude all the way – there's a lot of advantages to finding these tools 🙂

To transfer my music off my iPod I found this article which discusses 5 Ways to Copy Music Off Your iPod (Windows / Mac OS X).  If you're on a PC Windows computer it's much easier. 

According to the article, here’s how

  1. Connect your iPod — Warning! if iTunes loads when you plug in your iPod, and is set to automatically sync your entire library (erasing your iPod), you MUST stop it — hit the little “X” in the upper right hand corner of the window.

  2. Open your iPod — It should show up on “My Computer” as a “Mobile Device”; right click and choose “Explore”. Alternatively, go to the Control Panel, Portable Media Devices, and double-click your iPod.

  3. Unhide the files — By default, Windows hides hidden files and folders (thus the name). Go to Options (in the Tools menu), and on the View tab, check “Show Hidden Files and Folders”.

  4. Find the Music — The music is stored (in current iPods) in the directory “\iPod_Control\Music”. This may have a lot of odd looking stuff in it — it doesn’t matter; select everything and drag and drop them to a folder on your hard drive.

  5. Configure iTunes — Go into iTunes Preferences, and under the Advanced tab, check “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to the library” (settings move around a bit between versions of iTunes, but these settings will be there somewhere).

  6. Add Your Files — In iTunes, select File, Add Folder to Library, and select the folder where you copied the files from your iPod. Alternatively, just drag and drop this folder onto iTunes

Unfortunately I'm using a Mac and needed to find a different solution…  

TouchCopy is available for download to a Mac or PC and works with all models of iPod, iPhone or iPad.  A license costs $24.95 but there is a free demo available which allows you to transer 100 songs.  Since I have a pretty organized music library it was nice how TouchCopy allowed me to copy playlists, albeit one-byone it was still faster than reorganizing aftertwards (ie 80's music).  

With TouchCopy you can: 

  • Transfer Music, Playlists, Podcasts and Videos.
  • Copy Artwork, Ratings, Play counts and other data.
  • Backup Photos from any iPod, iPhone or iPad.
  • Manage Contacts, Calendars, SMS and Notes.
  • Use your iPhone or iPad as an external hard drive.
  • Comes with free updates and free customer support.
There is also iRip which appears to have the same functionality for $19.95.

If you're looking for a totally free version, checkout DeTune.  With DeTune you can copy any or all of your songs (or videos) off your iPod, using whatever file naming convention you like. Files are copied without modification, meaning that any songs purchased from iTunes will still contain DRM.  DeTune is also a pretty cool tool for when you need to transport large files from one Mac to another since
DeTune allows you to make use of your iPod's file system as a storage drive. 

Another earlier (and now unsupported) free software you might want to try if you are experiencing trouble with DeTune is Expod.

NERD NOTE:The nameiPodwas proposed by Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter, who (with others) was called by Apple to figure out how to introduce the new player to the public. After Chieco saw a prototype, he thought of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!", which refers to the white EVA Pods of the Discovery One spaceship.  Read more:http://www.methodshop.com/gadgets/ipodsupport/copyoff/index.shtml#ixzz13vrG5jbg

In the process I found some other pretty cool tools you might also want to take a look at.  Hope they help!

  • iPod to iTunes Transfer

    Copy Songs, Playlists, Videos, etc from iPod to iTunes. Free download.

    WideAngleSoftware.com/TouchCopy

  • iRip – Transfer songs

    Copy music from your Pod, Phone or Nano to your PC with iRip.

    thelittleappfactory.com

  • Pod to PC – Copy Music

    Copy from Pod to PC. Award Winning. Free download.

    www.Macroplant.com/PodToPC

  • Duracell® Pocket Charger

    Portable Instant Backup Power For Your Electronic Devices.

    www.Duracell.com/Chargers

  • Fix Your MP3 Collection

    Fix Duplicates, Tag and Rename MP3s Free Demo. Enjoy Your Music Again!

www.musicwrench.com

Posted via email from ntho: anthony cerreta