FYI: iTunes 10 - now exports playlists from iPod

Thanks so much! You advice was a great help SpyglassSally.

I can't seem to follow this thread.....how do I find the playlist on my iPod? I have hundreds of playlists on an iPod Classic and desperately want to get them back in iTunes.

I also want to retrieve hundreds of Album Artwork that I manually inserted and is now lost on iTunes as well.....any way to do that?

Could you please re-post instructions on getting the playlists from the iPod?

Thanks. Got it. This will take a while. Slight exaggeration.....have about 100 playlists.....as I have almost 10,000 songs in my iTunes library.

Any ideas re restoring album artwork from the iPod?

Apple really needs to make this easier.....

As Chris says, backup... For an easy way see this User Tip.

tt2

I've been trying this method for about an hour, I save the XML file but when I try to import it, literally nothing happens. Has this happened to anyone else and can you help me? Thanks.

Yes, everything is in my library, I export the playlist as an XML, but when I find that file and try to import it, literally nothing happens. Any help is much appreciated!

I suggest you export a short playlist with say two or three files and look at it in a text editor. It may be that the exported playlist files directly reference the files on the device can only be used to rebuild the playlist on the device, rather than to create a matching playlist in iTunes.

On second thoughts the feature might be borked. I've just exported the m3u of "Purchased on Steve's iPhone" which has 12 entries as I look at the device but consists of the following text:

#EXTM3U

And is therefore an empty playlist file. 😟

(If the option does nothing useful it shouldn't be there)

On third thoughts the XML version makes a lot more sense. I haven't time just now for destructive testing and since my iPod is autosynced I'm not sure I want to mess with the Purchased lists.

tt2

Message was edited by: turingtest2

ok, after letting the computer sit overnight, just tried it again, and now for some reason it worked! Thanks for your help.

"

"I have hundreds of playlists on an iPod Classic"

???

Why in the world would anyone have "hundreds of playlists"?"

If you have a lot of music, making playlists is the whole point.

Just transfered most of my playlists from my ipod to itunes on my pc which has windows 7. For some reason some songs could not be found, but for the most part it went very smoothly. Thanks VERY MUCH!!! for the procedural advice that even an ignoramus like me could follow. Thanks,Thanks,Thanks.