Where are metadata (Play Counts, Ratings) stored on an iPod?

Question

Where are metadata (Play Counts, Ratings) stored on an iPod?

Since I'm trying to save my music from my corrupted iPod I wonder where I can find the file containing the Play Counts and Ratings.

I already managed to save my music through the "iPod_control" folder. I heard that there is a file that is always replaced (or updated) each time you play a track or change a rating so it follows that one should be able to copy this file off the iPod and simply put it on again after having restored it, right?

I know that in the case of itunes there is a file containing all the information that are not part of "ID3 tag".

Now there is a file on the iPod called Playcounts but it's only 1KB big and I doubt that it contains the rating & play counts information for 74 GB of music (12.000 songs)...

I will be covering anyone who can help with praise and thanks! 🙂

Posted on Mar 26, 2012 11:52 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 1, 2012 2:42 AM in response to Annoyone1234567890

I think, the 1kb file in the iPod, is the playlist summary. which store the recent and top 25 songs played, with the default playlist.

If you are looking for playcounts and ratings, it is in the song ID3 tag itself (ID3v2 Frame PCNT and POP), maybe there are some apps that can extract these tags (not too sure, but try those 3rd party iPod to PC Apps like Copytrans)

Have a nice day!

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,725 points

Apr 1, 2012 7:31 AM in response to Annoyone1234567890

As stated, ratings and playcounts are not stored in tags. I've a feeling the playcounts file will be holding the delta changes, i.e. the number of plays that have occured on the device since it was last synced. When you sync these numbers can be used to update the source library. There is a library database file on the device, equivalent to iTunes Library.itl on your computer, that holds ratings, the initial playcounts, information about playlists etc. Can't recall offhand what it is called but you'll need a thrid party tool to extract data from it.

PCNT & POPM frames are not created or updated by iTunes.

tt2

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Answer 3

Apr 1, 2012 7:28 PM in response to turingtest2

tt2, thanks for the correcting my stumblings

The file is called itunesDB located in iPod_Control->iTunes

Only useful if we use CopyTrans to extract the data back to iTunes, there were some Perl scripts that can extract into HTML file but it cant read the latest iTunes library format, only iTunes 7 or earlier.

Besides Copytrans, there are many other 3rd party software can extract these metadata, into iTunes like

iGadget.

iPodAccess

Music Rescue

Good Luck

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Answer 4

Apr 2, 2012 10:12 AM in response to Bilbo_cheshire

At first I tried CopyTrans Doctor to fix my iPod but the program was not able to fix my corrupted database (but the support was really good (a technician checked the error file and told me my iPod's gonna give up on me sooner or later due to mistakes on its hard drive) and in the end I even got my 20 bucks back!)

I was finally able to recover my music from my iPod using the program iPod2PC (Price: 15€). It was able to transfer about 90% of my data from my iPod back to iTunes including all the metadata (Play Count, Ratings & Playlists). Furthermore it displayed the remaining 10% of my music/podcast/audiobooks but without any tags (no artist/album/title/genre) and I suppose those where the files that were corrupted. What is interesting is that all the corrupted files were files that I put on at about the same time (all of them about 2 years ago).

Now I have my iPod back (games I bought are missing though) and will do a backup on a regular basis.

Thanks to you guys for your help!

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Answer 5

Apr 2, 2012 5:43 PM in response to Annoyone1234567890

You are most welcome, No Problem, you also help me to learn more about iPod and iTunes metadata.

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