Transferring music from iPod

[ldrury]

I have just picked up a 30G iPod.... very impressed..... BUT -

I can't copy from the iPod to my computer - is an iPod a one way transfer only???? seems sensible since Apple are selling music and don't want people sharing easily.... or have I missed something???

[acme.mail.order]

There's two places you can copy to and from - the music library and the disk storage. I assume you mean the former. You want to recover the music on a loaded iPod. I also assume this is your iPod and your music, yes?
Copying the files is a simple drag-and-drop, but the iPod's file structure isn't meant to be user-friendly. Folder after folder of meaningless 4-character file names, the playlists buried in binary databases. Good Luck, and May Google Be With You

[ldrury]

Actually today I was trying to get some tunes off of someone elses Pod :O Won't discuss that further here though.....

I was originally, upon getting the iPod, to use it as my music "mother ship" and delete stuff from my drive..... I won't if I can't transfer it back, cripes! Good info to know....

[acme.mail.order]

Well, as long as it's something that's ok to transfer - open license, promo material etc....

I would never consider using something as portable, stealable and breakable as an iPod as my primary storage. If you really wanted to you could arrange for iTunes to store it's music library on the mounted iPod volume and sync it back to itself, but why? A massive external USB drive costs about the same as a Shuffle these days, and stores things with readable filenames.

[robarmo]

Think of your iTunes library on your computer as a backup incase anything should ever happen to your iPod, whether that be having to restore it for some reason, it getting dropped/damaged or stolen. If the worst happens you're only a sync away from getting its replacement up and running.

Rob.

[ldrury]

Well I have 3 ext HDDs.... will just have to remember to always put things on the iTunes library first! Doesn't really worry me too much though.... I guess I still need my library AND its backup.....
Google has turned up some interesting tidbits though - thanks ;)

[chutem]

The transfer is indeed one way when using itunes. However there are many "pod rippers" which will allow for transfer from pod to computer. Assuming you have a mac my favs are senuti (http://wbyoung.ambitiouslemon.com/senuti/) and podworks (http://www.scifihifi.com/podworks/). If you have a pc just google ipod ripper and you should easily be able to find one for pc. Of course this should only be used for music that you have the licence for.

[Coco]

Hi Chutem,
I was in trouble, because by accident (it doesn't matter now neither how..) I had everything, I mean, EVERYTHING lost from my G4. I reinstall almost everything back I had before and just really lost the pictures and all...ALL songs. I hadn't backed up them... I know, I know...
Anyway, I had almost all of the songs in my iPod. When I read your tip about those softwares, I couldn't believe it! I run SENUTI and it worked! Thanks!