In case your Mac suddenly crashes or you accidentally deleted all the music and video files in the Mac library, the initial reaction is to try to restore all the files by relying on your back-up files. No back-up files? If this is the case then your iPod can certainly serve as the back- up. How do you transfer iPod Music to a Mac?
There are various reasons why you would want to transfer your iPod music to a Mac. One way is to manually copying the songs off your iPod and into your Mac with a version of 9.x iTunes and up. Make sure you have a synching cable for your iPod USB.
Step 1- Prevent automatic syncing. Make sure that before you connect your Mac to your iPod, iTunes is not synched with your iPod as this might accidentally delete all contents of the iPod. At this time, your Mac’s iTunes library has missing or no files at all that if your iTunes and iPod are synched, files missing in your iTunes will also be missing your iPod. Disable synching by launching iTunes. Select Preferences and click “Devices”. Click “’Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically” then OK.
Quit iTunes. Make sure that your Mac and iPod are not connected before you hold down the option and Apple/cloverleaf command keys. Now plug the iPod to your Mac while still holding. A dialog box will then inform you that iTunes is running in safe mode. Release both the option/command keys the click “Quit” for iTunes. The iPod and iTunes will no longer automatically synch.
Step 2- Make music files in the iPod visible. You can do this by going to Application/Utilities then choose Launch Terminal. Then copy/paste or type the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
Make sure that you press the return key after every line. When these lines are entered into the Terminal, the Finder will now display your Mac’s hidden files.
Step 3- Identify the Music Files in the iPod. This folder contains all your iPod music, video, audio books and all other media files. Double-click the iPod icon then open the iPod’s Control folder, and next open the Music folder. These files are filed in ID3 tags and can be sorted out by iTunes.
Step 4- Drag the iPod music to your Mac. The files will be in folders labeled as F0, F1, F2 and so on. Use the Finder to drag and drop the music files and all other media files to a new folder.
Step 5- The iPod’s media files are now safely copied to a folder in your Mac. Disconnect the IPod and add the copied music to your iTunes Library. Click iTunes icon. The iTunes’ dialog box opened in Step 1 should be running. Click the button marked “Cancel”. Eject the iPod and disconnect your Mac and iPod.
Step 6- Copy to Mac Library. First, open the iTunes Preferences then select “Advanced”. Check “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” then check “Copy file to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” then OK. Select “Add to Library” from iTunes menu. Open the folder that contains the recovered iPod music for iTunes to copy the files that you copied to its library.
Hide all the visible “hidden” files by typing the following in the Launch Terminal.
Do you think this would work? If it does work, is the process easy enough for anyone to follow?
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