How do I get music off my ipod onto my Macbook?

Question

How do I get music off my ipod onto my Macbook?

I have had three macs, the first one completely crashed and i never got any help or any reason why from the mac dealers.

Now I have two where I buy music off the same credit card with as with the first one.

I don't know how to get music between them even though all three are licensed at the top to be allowed to play the songs. I have always downloaded my music legally and bought through itunes. But the only music remaining from my first mac (ibook) is on my ipod and I can't drag those songs back into my library on my new computers.

any tips?

Mac Pro/MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4), Final Cut Studio 2

Posted on Dec 1, 2008 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Zevoneer

Level 9

52,705 points

Dec 1, 2008 2:05 PM in response to Christopher-Robin

There are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve music files and playlists from your iPod. I use Senuti but have a look at the web pages and documentation for the others too, you'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos and games as well. This is just a small selection of what's available, you can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers

Senuti Mac Only (iPod Touch & iPhone compatible)
PodView Mac Only
PodWorks Mac Only
iPodDisk PPC Mac Only (experimental version available for Intel Macs)
TuneAid Mac only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPodRip Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac & Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Floola Mac & Windows
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)

If you have any iTunes Music Store purchases the transfer of purchased content only from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer

There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide

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Answer 2

Dec 1, 2008 2:24 PM in response to Zevoneer

THANK YOU!!!

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Answer 3

DannoT

Level 1

0 points

Dec 1, 2008 6:35 PM in response to Zevoneer

Just a quick word to thank you for your response to the question posted by Christopher Robin. I came across your answer whilst looking for resolution to another problem and appreciated all the links that you listed. Best regards.

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Answer 4

Lola4

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2008 1:09 PM in response to Christopher-Robin

Thanks as well. I was wondering if any of these sites work with music not bought through Itunes?

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Answer 5

Dec 7, 2008 12:31 AM in response to Lola4

You mean itunes it self doesn't let you drag songs back to the library even if you burned them form cds and there is no drm or they are self made recordings. Man how cheap. They should at least let you use ipod as backup and drag and drop the songs directly from itunes incase your computer crashes.

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Answer 6

Dec 7, 2008 9:51 AM in response to Christopher-Robin

If it's music you've bought through iTunes, you can get it back from your iPod by attaching it to the computer, open iTunes and when the iPod shows up in the devices list, right click, and click on "transfer purchases". This will import all songs on the iPod that have DRM, and as long as your computer is authorized to play them, you're set.

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Answer 7

Dec 7, 2008 11:25 AM in response to sean_hooper

Yes ones you've bought. But what about everything else?

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Answer 8

barrybem

Level 1

0 points

Dec 7, 2008 11:55 AM in response to Kavan Sidhu

I also appreciate all the links from Zevoneer, and I will look at them one by one. However, I am also interested in learning how to move songs (from CDs) from an iPod to my Mac. My iTunes library has disappeared. In the iTunes window all the songs/playlists are listed but they will not play because "the original file cannot be found." They are all still on my iPod and play just fine. When I sync the iPod with iTunes, everything still remains on the iPod, even though the music itself is apparently no longer in my iTunes library. I would appreciate any help with this.

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