How to Transfer Media Files from iPod into your Computer ?

There’s a reason why every new iPod comes labeled with the commandment the stealing music is wrong. That’s also why the road between iTunes and the iPod is (at least in theory) a one-way street. You can load up your iPod with new music from iTunes till the cows come home. But dumping the music from your iPod onto iTunes or a computer hard drive isn’t as rote.

Despite what some record industry bigwigs may believe, not everyone is desperately seeking free music. And Apple realizes that accidents happen. Hard drives crash. Computers end up at the bottom of swimming pools, in the hands of thieves or in deserted hotel rooms thousands of miles from home. Indeed, there are plenty of law-abiding, upright reasons to want to retrieve music from your iPod.

In that glorious light of openness and honesty, i-Core -with plenty of help from Apple & other Tech blogs - offers a few avenues for transferring music that is rightfully, legally yours from an iPod onto your computer.

Turning Your iPod Into an External Storage Device

If you search on the Apple Web site for information about transferring music from an iPod to a computer, you won’t find a ton of direct answers. The company line follows that iTunes is meant to deliver music to the iPod, not vice versa. If you wish to secure your digital library, Apple recommends backing it up on CDs or portable drives.

Despite this tight control, Apple has left a few back doors open to the iPod. The key to transferring music from an iPod to a computer is understanding how the device can double as an external storage device (hard or ­flash depending on iPod model). Apple has no problem with people using their iPods to store and transfer nonmedia files, such as tax returns documents. After figuring that out, we’re only a few more steps away from unlocking the door to moving around (for legal reasons) music (that you own legally).



­When you connect your iPod to iTunes, you can enable the device as an external storage device under the Settings tab. Here’s how you do that:

• Connect your iPod to your computer and open iTunes.
• Click on the iPod device in the iTunes source list on the left side of the screen.
• Click the Settings tab at the top of the screen.
• Under Settings, check the box that says “Enable disk use.”
• Close iTunes.
• Locate the iPod icon in the Finder on a Mac or Explorer on a Windows format.
• Drag the desired files over that icon.
• Disconnect the iPod from the computer.

When you want to retrieve those files, perform the first four steps again. Once you’ve enabled the iPod as a disk and locate the icon, you should be able to open it and see your files.

A file that you won’t notice when you open up that disk-enabled iPod is one with your music inside it. But where could your complete Hall and Oates discography be looming inside of that device? Apple designed gadgets purposely to hide its treasured media contents.

But just because you can’t see your songs doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Finding Hidden iPod Music Files

With a few mouse clicks and keystrokes, you can uncover the unseen files and locate your music. By enabling the disk mode on the iPod , you can then search for the holy grail: a folder called ipod_control. The ipod_control folder is hidden when you open up the iPod as an external drive.



Here’s how to find it if you use Windows:

• In Explorer, open the iPod icon in the Removable Disk drive.
• Click Tools.
• Scroll down and click Folder Options.
• Click the View tab.
• Under Hidden Files and Folders, select Show hidden files and folders.
• Select Apply, then click OK.

Toggling back to the contents of the iPod disk drive, you should see the ipod_control folder. Open that, and behold the Music folder: it contains multiple folders with clusters of song files. The songs’ filenames probably won’t be recognizable. That’s because they’re derived from ID3 tags. Those mP3 tags embed information such as title, artist, last time skipped and other data — not the original filename. Internally storing music files with ID3 tags allows iTunes to catalogue and cross-reference music more easily [source: Hollington]. On the flip side, the ID3 tags make it harder to retrieve specific songs or albums.



Accessing ipod_control in a Mac takes a little more work. Once you open the iPod icon on the desktop or from Finder, here’s what to do on a Mac:

• Open Terminal.app from the Applications folder.
• When the Terminal text window appears, type: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE.
• Press Enter.
• Type: killall Finder.
• Press Enter and leave the application open on the screen.

[source: Buskirk]

The ipod_control folder should then appear in the iPod disk contents. Once you’ve located ipod_control, create a folder on the Desktop to copy the Music folder contents. Then, import the music into iTunes using the Add Folder option.

Once you find and transfer your music, don’t forget to disable the file-showing operation. On Windows, retrace your steps and deselect “Show hidden files and folders.” For Macs, type FALSE instead of TRUE in the Terminal application.

To save yourself time and panic of losing your library, it’s always a good idea to back up your music. Apple has made that a bit easier with iTunes 8. It includes a feature that allows you to up your entire library on CD. Then, all you have to do is remember where tucked away that disk.

Tags: Apple, iPod, Tips & Tricks