How to Copy iPod Music to Your Mac

You accidentally deleted some of your favorite ringtones and videos from your Mac and you don’t have backup ? Well, not all can be lost if you use iTunes 9 and you’ve synced your iPod with your iTunes desktop library. If so, your iPod can serve as your backup. You can copy music, movies, and videos from your iPod to your Mac, and then restore them to your iTunes library.

The information in this article applies to a Mac running OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) or earlier with iTunes 9.

What You Need to Transfer iPod Music to Your Mac

iPod with music and other content intact
Mac with iTunes 9 and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or earlier
The cable that came with the iPod

If you need instructions for a different version of iTunes or OS X, see how to restore iTunes music library by ripping music from iPod in other versions of iTunes and OS X.

In order to recover music in iTunes from iPod, you need to follow a few things:

Prevent iPod from syncing when connected to Mac.
Make invisible files visible so you can copy them.
Find the music files on your iPod and save them to a folder on your Mac desktop.
Unmount your iPod.
Adjust your iTunes settings.
Move the recovered music to iTunes library.
Re-hide hidden files that you have made visible.

Yes, making a backup is easier, but if you’re desperate, this method works.

Prevent iTunes from automatically syncing with your iPod

Before you connect your iPod to your Mac, you must disable synchronization iTunes from the iPod. If this happens, it may delete all data on your iPod. Some or all of the songs or other files on your iPod are currently missing from your iTunes library on Mac. If you sync your iPod with iTunes, you will end up with an iPod that is missing the same files.

Disable sync

To prevent iPod from syncing with iTunes:

Make sure your iPod is not connected to your Mac.
Run iTunes which is located in menu » Applications» > » Utilities» .
Select » Settings» in menu iTunes .
Go to tab » Devices «.
Check the box » Prevent iPod and iPhone from syncing automatically .
Click OK .

Connect your iPod to your Mac

close itunes, if it’s running.
Make sure your iPod is not connected to your Mac.
Holding keys Option + command, connect your iPod to your Mac.

iTunes launches and displays a dialog informing you that it is running in safe mode. you can let go keys Option and command .
Click the button Go out» in the dialog box.

iTunes is out. Your iPod is installed on your desktop without any synchronization between iTunes and iPod.

Make music files on your iPod visible for copying

Once you have your iPod installed on your Mac’s desktop, you can expect to be able to browse its files using the Finder. However, if you double-click the iPod icon on the desktop, you’ll see folders named Calendars, Contacts, and Notes, but you won’t see any music files.

Apple chose to hide folders containing iPod media, but you can do hidden folders visible using Terminal, the command line interface included with OS X. You won’t be able to copy music to your Mac until you see it.

Run Terminal, located in Applications > Utilities .
Type or copy and paste the following commands on two lines as shown. Press key return after each line is entered.

по умолчанию написать com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE 
killall Finder

The two lines you enter in Terminal, allow the Finder to show all hidden files on your Mac. The first line tells the Finder to display all files regardless of how the hidden flag is set. The second line stops and restarts finder, for the changes to take effect. You may see your desktop disappear for a moment and then reappear when you run these commands.

Find and identify iPod music files

Now that you’ve told the Finder to show all hidden files, you can use it to find your media files and copy them to your Mac.

To access music files on your iPod:

Double click ipod icon on the desktop or click the name iPod on sidebar of the Finder window.
open folder iPod controls .
open folder » Music » .

The Music folder contains your music and any movies or video files you have copied to your iPod. You may be surprised to find that the folders and files in the Music folder do not have easily distinguishable names. Folders represent your various playlists; the files in each folder are the media files, music, audiobooks, podcasts, or videos associated with that particular playlist.

Although the filenames do not contain any recognizable information, the internal ID3 tags not damaged. As a result, any application that can read ID3 tags can sort the files for you. You should look no further than your own computer; iTunes reads ID3 tags.

Use Finder and Drag and Drop iPod Music to Your Mac

The easiest way to copy iPod media files to your Mac is to use the Finder to drag and drop the files to an appropriate location, such as a new folder on your desktop.

Right-click on an empty area of the desktop and select » New folder» in the popup menu.
Name the new folder iPod Recovered or any other name you can remember later.
Drag and drop music files from your iPod to folder iPod Recovered . These are real music files located on your iPod. They are usually found in a series of folders named F0, F1, F2, etc. and have names like BBOV.aif and BXMX.m4a. open each of folders F and use menu Finder > » Editing» > » Choose all» then drag the selected music files to folder iPod Recovered .

Finder starts the process of copying files. This may take some time, depending on the amount of data on the iPod.

Add Recovered iPod Music to Your iTunes Library

You have successfully recovered your iPod media files and copied them to a folder on your Mac. The next step is to unmount the iPod and add the recovered music to your iTunes library.