How to Copy Music from iPod to Computer

Currently there are many ways to copy music from iPod to computer using an intermediary application, but the following method does not require access to your devices

Table of Contents

Copy Music to Personal Computer

Using iTunes

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Connect to iPod. Use an Apple cable (or a compatible cable) to connect your iPod to the computer. Wait until the computer recognizes the device.

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Make sure that the “disk use” feature on iTunes is enabled.

Note: if you own an iPod Touch or an iPhone, you need a middleware to put the device into drive mode to copy music directly to iTunes.

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Open My Computer. Under Devices With Removable Storage , double-click to open iPod.

Click Tools (Tops) at the top of the window then select Folder Options (Fpder Options).
In the View tab, find the folder named Hidden files and fpders.
Select Reveal hidden files and folders (Show hidden files and fpders) then click OK .

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Open the iTunes folder. Double-click the Control_iPod (iPod_Contrp) folder and then open the Music folder. These folders are randomly named so you are unlikely to find a music folder with the exact same name.

Select all the folders that contain Music , then copy to a new folder on the hard drive. Now you don’t need to use iPod anymore. You can disconnect from the computer.

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Open iTunes. In the folder you just created, open each folder one by one and label it “F##”, then press CTRL+A to select all files in that folder.

Drag the selected files out of the subfolder, move to the largest folder you have created. You can copy files to any folder on your computer, but this is more efficient.
Once done, all your music files will be in the same folder, simplifying the process of importing files into iTunes. After the copy is complete, disable hiding the folders by right-clicking, selecting Properties, unchecking “Hide” (Hidden).
If you have an MPEG4 file, you can search for “*.m*” to filter out a list of songs.

Using Folders

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Connect to iPod. Use an Apple cable (or compatible cable) to connect iPod and computer. Wait for the computer to recognize the device.

Avoid automatic sync. If automatic sync is enabled, skip it by pressing Shift+CTRL while connecting iPod to computer.
Hold down Shift+CTRL until iPod appears in the Sources list under iTunes devices .
You can now find your iPod under “My computer” as a removable drive.

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Reveal hidden folders. Go to Tools (Tops), select Folder Options (Fpder option), then select View tab.

Select Reveal hidden files and folders (Show hidden files and fpders) then click OK .

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Copy iPod songs to a folder on your computer’s hard drive. Access the iPod device and open the “iPod Control” (iPod-Contrp) folder. Select the music folder located in the above folder.

Import this folder into your iTunes music library. Open iTunes then click File , select Add file to library (Add fpder to library).
Select the folder you want to import then press “OK” (Okay).

Copy Music to Mac

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Disable sync. Press and hold the Command+Option key while connecting the iPod. Don’t release the key until the iPod is connected to iTunes.

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Make hidden folders appear. Start Terminal at /Applications/Utilities. Type or copy and paste the following command. Then press the Return (Enter) key after each line.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

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Enable the use of disk drive for iPod. On iTunes, select iPod, select the Summary tab. Make sure “use drive” for iPod is enabled. This allows you to view your iPod’s media files on the Finder.

Note: if you own an iPod Touch or an iPhone, you need to use middleware to get the device and drive usage status to copy music directly to iTunes.

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Using the Finder, copy the iPod’s media files to the computer.

In the Finder, locate your iPod’s media files. Do this by double-clicking the iPod icon. Open the iPod Control folder (iPod Contrp). Open the Music folder.
Create a new folder on the desktop to hold the music files. To create a folder, right-click an empty space on the desktop and select “New Folder” (New Fpder) from the menu dialog. Then name the new folder.
Copy music from iPod by dragging the Music folder from iPod to the newly created folder. Copying files can take hours, depending on how much space is stored.

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Set preferences on iTunes. Open the iTunes menu and select Preferences . Select the Advanced tab. Check the “Keep iTunes Music fpder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music fpder when adding to library” check boxes. Click the OK button.

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Add to library. Select Add to Library… (Add to library…) from the File menu in iTunes. Access your iPod’s music folder. Click the Open button. iTunes will proceed to copy the file to the music library.

If the above steps fail: your music files may still be in hidden folders. Although you can see hidden folders in the finder (they appear as gray folders), they do not appear in the “Add to library” step. To work around this, drag your files from the hidden folder into a newly created file.

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Restore settings/folders to factory settings. Delete the newly created music folder if necessary. You can delete the music folder you import into iTunes because by default during the “Add to Library” process the files are copied to the iTunes library folder. If you want to hide hidden files and folders (factory reset), type or copy and paste the following command into Terminal. Press the Return (Enter) key after each line.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder

Advice

The folder detail view on Windows XP will read the tags of mp3 tracks and display the corresponding Artist, Name, and Album information. By default, columns will appear, if you don’t see them you can add them. This can also be done on other versions of Windows.
You can’t drag and drop the entire file into iTunes because it can’t recognize the file tag and you won’t know what it is.
If you bought a song from iTunes and the computer you’re trying to store the song on is not the one you used to buy the music on, you can only copy files, but not play the music due to the AAC format. The format is protected and won’t run on other computers unless you authorize that device by signing in with the Apple account (used to purchase the song). You can only authorize up to 5 computers.
- To do this, select Store and then select Authorize Computer from the menu. Many times iTunes is also confused. If the Menu only shows Deauthorize This Computer, select this option. Then continue to select Authorize This Computer (Authorize This Computer).

Warning

This will not retain information stored in the iTunes library such as star rating and playback count. There are 3rd party utilities that can get this information off the iPod. If you are looking for a way to completely recover lost data from your iTunes library (after a hard drive failure or the like), you will want to discover an application specifically designed for data recovery. instead of using the manual method as in this article.
When copying all songs at once, you may run into trouble if multiple songs in different ‘F##’ folders have the same name. For example, several different songs are named ’01Track01.m4a’. When you copy them all into the same newly created folder, you cannot copy all the songs from your iPod or you have to copy the files with the same name to different folders one by one, and this is very tedious. time. Using the above way (copying each F## folder to iTunes) will be faster.

Steps