How do I access old iTunes account from iPod Shuffle

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How do I access old iTunes account from iPod Shuffle

I Recently found my iPod shuffle - the little one that clips on to your clothing. It is a 1 GB iPod I believe. I didn't have any other Apple products at the time so not sure if I had an Apple ID back then. In fact, the earliest Apple ID I had was from 2012 when I got my first iPhone and was an @me.com account. But that was established long after I had the iPod shuffle and mislaid it. The PC I had at the time died in 2013 but I have the hard drive in an enclosure with a USB Connector. I used it as a backup drive on the PC I bought in 2013. That PC had so many problems (Windows 8 - need I say more?) that I purchased an iMac in August 2015.

I Recently purchased a iPad Pro in December.

Can I use that old hard drive/backup to try to locate my old iTunes account? Will it work if I plug it into the iMac? I don't want to cause any issues with my iMac but would love to find that old iTunes account. I believe it was in iTunes 11 but not sure. Or is there any other way to search for the old iTunes account? I have had the same email address for about 16 or 17 years so if registered under that, how would I search for it? Except for the Shuffle and iPhone, I am pretty new to Apple products.

Thanksfor any help you can give me -

Judy

iPod shuffle, Not sure of the OS on the Shuffle

Posted on Feb 19, 2016 10:37 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kenichi Watanabe

Level 8

41,584 points

Feb 19, 2016 1:51 PM in response to JWL33777

iPods (that are not iPod touch) are not directly associated with an Apple ID (iTunes Store account). They can be associated with an iTunes library (on the computer), which is not the same thing as an Apple ID. You can use that iPod shuffle again with your current iTunes library on your iMac, but it may need to be erased and loaded from your current iTunes library.

Your other question is a separate issue. You can probably recover your old songs from that old hard drive. It should be readable if you connect it to the iMac. If it is formatted using NTFS (likely), it is read-only on a Mac, but that's fine for copying data from it onto the iMac's drive. Take a look at this document, which explains how to back up your iTunes library data (which has the info you need)

Manage and back up your iTunes media library - Apple Support

Using Finder, locate the iTunes folder on the old hard drive, which has the iTunes Media folder inside. Open the iTunes Media folder to find folders by media type, such as Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, etc. Your old songs (and other media) files are organized and stored there.

I assume you have a current iTunes library on the iMac, with its own songs (and other media), that you want to keep. To add the songs from the your old iTunes library to your new iTunes library, run iTunes on the iMac and add the songs you want from the iTunes Media folder on the old hard drive. You can use the menu bar File -> Add to Library command. Or you can drag songs (or folder with songs) from a Finder window and drop them on the iTunes window (into your music library). You can select to add individual items or folders or even the entire iTunes Media folder all at once.

If you want to use your old complete iTunes library instead of your current iTunes library, that may be possible. Please post back for more info.

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