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diff --git a/old/published/How To Wiki/how-to music off ipod.txt b/old/published/How To Wiki/how-to music off ipod.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88fb0ba --- /dev/null +++ b/old/published/How To Wiki/how-to music off ipod.txt @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +Dumping your entire music collection onto an iPod is a simple one-click process, but what about getting music off an iPod? That's not so simple. + +Fortunately there are ways to get music off your iPod including some that won't cost you a thing. + +There are a number of legitimate reasons you might need to transfer songs from your iPod to your hard drive. For instance, if you consider you iPod a backup of your music collection, if that fateful say arrives and your PC hard drive crashes, you can get your music back without re-ripping all those CDs (which isn't to say that you shouldn't have other backups, when it comes to backups the more the merrier). + +What you'll need: + +An iPod obviously and either a Windows or Mac machine. + +Then there are a number of third party software solutions, some free, some not free all of which provide slightly different ways of browsing and recovering songs from your iPod. + + +How To + +The simplest and most difficult way to grab tunes from your iPod is enable the "Disk Mode" feature of the iPod from within iTunes. This will cause the iPod to mount as a hard drive drive which you can browse through Windows Explorer or Mac Finder. + +In the case of the Mac you'll need to enable hidden folders in the Finder which you can do by firing up Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and pasting in these lines of code: + +defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE + +killall Finder + +To turn them off just change TRUE to FALSE. + +While functionally this method will work, there are plenty of software apps that make the process of browsing and copying files much much easier. + +Third Party Apps + +Senuti +Senuti is a free and open-source, Mac-only application that allows you to recover songs, photos and movies from your iPod. Senuti features drag-and-drop transfer of songs and playlists. Senuti also allows you to copy songs from a Windows formatted iPod. + +The main downside to Senuti is that it doesn't recognize duplicate tracks. If you have a playlist with 10 songs on your iPod and the same playlist already exists in iTunes, Senuti will add the same 10 songs again. + +You can stop Senuti from duplicating the actual song files by choosing "overwrite songs" in the preferences, but there doesn't seem to be a way to stop the duplication of songs within playlists. + +iPodRip +IPodRip works in both Mac OS X and Windows. It has drag-and-drop support for moving songs from your iPod directly into iTunes, as well as one-click importing to restore a local collection. + +IPodRip also features a number of nice extras not found elsewhere, such as a database integrity check for your iPod database, an option to export your library information to HTML or XML formats, and the ability to sync metadata between your iPod and iTunes. + +IPodRip is shareware, and it costs $15. The unlicensed version is not crippled, but it will expire after 10 uses. So, if you just need to recover from a hard drive failure or similar one-time problem, iPodRip can do it for free. + +iPod Access +Another cross-platform offering, copying songs with iPod Access is simple: Just highlight the songs you want to copy and click "Add to iTunes." The trial version only allows you to transfer five songs at a time, but I had no problems copying songs within the limit. A full license costs $20. + +When it comes to handling song transfers, iPod Access gives you more options than the other programs reviewed, including the option to rename the songs in a variety of formats. IPod Access will also only overwrite existing files on your computer if the iPod copy is newer. + +Anapod Explorer +This Windows-only app raises the bar somewhat compared to the other programs. It doesn't just recover files, it also does a whole bunch of other stuff as well. The downside is that those additional features come at an additional cost -- the full version of Anapod Explorer is $30. + +Anapod Explorer includes a separate program, Anapod Xtreamer, which allows you to browse your iPod in a web browser. Xtreamer makes it easy to transfer files, not just from your iPod to the connected computer, but to any computer on your network. + +There are about a dozen more features in Anapod Explorer, but since most of them go far beyond our review goals (get music off your iPod) I'll leave them for you to discover. + +Podworks +Another Mac-only program, Podworks boasts a number of ways to recover your music from an iPod. Podworks can send the songs straight into iTunes by using the "Send All to iTunes" option, or it can transfer songs to any other location on your hard drive. + +Podworks lacks the desirable-drag and-drop features of other applications, but it does avoid duplicating songs. + +The shareware app costs $8. There is a 30-day trail version which is limited to 250 song transfers. + + +YamiPod +This is the only tool of the bunch that supports all three major operating systems. It's also free. YamiPod can transfer songs to and from an iPod, and it offers a good range of options for handling duplicates. + +YamiPod also has some extra features not found in the other programs, including the ability to create playlists and send them to Last.fm. YamiPod can add song lyrics to your tunes, and it also supports Mac OS X's Growl notification system. Read our full review. + |