Get Songs off an iPod Without iTunes

iTunes is great for syncing your own music with your own computer, but not so great when you want to transfer your music to a new computer, or grab some songs from a friend's iPod. Luckily, there are third-party tools that allow you to quickly grab any music file from an iPod Touch or Classic. If you have an old Click Wheel iPod, you don't even need any special software.

Steps

iPod Touch

  1. Understand what has changed with the iPod Touch. Classic iPods could be connected to your computer as external hard drives, allowing you to extract the music files from it with relative ease. The iPod Touch (and iPad and iPhone) no longer support this, as they are running iOS. There are a lot of technical reasons as to why this is, but all you need to know is that methods that you used to use with a classic iPod no longer work.
    • This method also works for classic iPods.
  2. Download and install a third-party transfer program. In order to get your music tracks off of your iPod Touch, you'll need a transfer program that can access your iPod Touch's file system. Some of the more popular programs include:
    • Sharepod (Windows) - You can download Sharepod from getsharepod.com
    • Senuti (OS X) - You can download the free version from wstein.org/senuti/
    • gtkpod (Linux) - You can download gtkpod from gtkpod.org/wiki/Home
  3. Install iTunes (Windows only). Don't worry, you won't be using it. Sharepod (and most other iPod management programs for Windows) requires iTunes in order to function so that it can use the connection services that iTunes installs. Once you install iTunes, you never have to open it and can uninstall it as soon as you're finished.
  4. Connect your iPod Touch to your computer via USB. Close iTunes if it opens automatically. For most transfer programs, you'll have greater success if you start with the iPod Touch already connected.
  5. Open your newly-installed transfer program. It should detect your iPod Touch automatically and list all of your music tracks in the main window.
    • If you are using Senuti, you'll be asked to specify a few things before you can access the main interface, such as where you want to store transferred songs.
  6. Select the songs you want to transfer. Depending on the program you are using, you may be able to check individual songs that you want to transfer or select all of your songs at once.
  7. Transfer the selected songs. Click the "Copy to computer" or "Transfer" button to begin copying the selected tracks to your computer. If you're using Sharepod, you'll be prompted to select the location that you want the copied tracks to be moved to.
    • If you're copying a lot of music, the transfer process may take a while.
  8. Access your copied music. Once the transfer process is complete, you'll be able to find the copied music at the location that you specified.[1]

iPod Classic

  1. Consider using a third-party program. Any of the programs listed in the section above will also work with your iPod Classic, and will make it easier to find the exact song(s) you want to transfer. If you use the method outlined in this section, you'll won't be able to determine which tracks are which until you load them into a media player. This is because the iPod Classic renames all of the files when they are added to the iPod.
  2. Put your iPod into Disk Mode. This is only possible on iPod Classic models (not iPod Touch), and allows you to access the iPod's files as if it was a USB drive. You can put your iPod Classic into Disk Mode without opening iTunes.
    • iPod devices with a Click Wheel - Toggle the Hold switch on and then back off. Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears (about six seconds). As soon as the Apple logo appears, release the Menu and Select buttons and immediately hold the Select and Play buttons until the Disk Mode screen appears.
    • iPod Nano - Press and hold the Sleep and Home buttons (7th gen) or the Sleep and Volume Down buttons (6th gen). Hold the buttons until the Apple logo appears. As soon as the Apple logo appears, release the buttons and immediately press and hold the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons until the Disk Mode screen appears.
    • Older iPods without a Click Wheel - Toggle the Hold switch on and then back off. Press and hold the Play and Menu buttons until the Apple logo appears. As soon as the logo appears, immediately press and hold the Previous and Next buttons until the Disk Mode screen appears.
  3. Connect the iPod to your computer. It should appear as a removable drive in your Computer/My Computer window (Windows) or on your desktop (Mac).
  4. Enable your computer to display hidden files. In order to find the music on your iPod, you'll need your computer to display hidden files.
    • Windows - Open the Control Panel and select Folder Options. If you are in Category View, select "Appearance and Personalization" and then click "Folder Options". Click the View tab and then select "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" in the "Hidden files and folders" section.
    • Mac - Open the Terminal, which can be found in the Utilities folder, type defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE and press ↵ Enter. Then type killall Finder and press ↵ Enter to restart Finder and apply the changes.
  5. Open your iPod on your computer. Double-click your iPod in your Computer/My Computer window or on your desktop. This will display the folders contained on your iPod.
  6. Open the iPod_Control\Music folder. This is the folder that contains all of the music files on your iPod. You'll notice that none of the filenames say what the song is; the iPod renames all the files that are imported using iTunes. Luckily, the files still contain the metadata with all of the song's information, which will be loaded by the media player of your choice.
  7. Copy all of the music to your computer. Since you won't be able to tell what song is what, unless you go through each song one at a time, your best bet is to just copy everything over to your computer. When you open the songs in a media player, you'll be able to see the information there.
    • If you're copying a lot of music, the transfer process may take a while.



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Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://lifehacker.com/5869827/how-to-copy-music-from-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod-touch-to-your-computer-for-free
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