How to Recover Lost Music From an iPod for Free
Losing the music that you have stored on your hard drive can be an unpleasant experience, especially if you have spent hours converting your CD collection to a digital format. All hope is not lost, however, if you have your music stored on your iPod. Although Apple doesn't provide a direct way to copy music from an iPod to your computer, there's a free workaround that will let you restore your music to your hard drive.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Use the cable that came with your iPod to connect it to your computer. Hold down "Shift-Ctrl" on your keyboard while launching iTunes to keep your iPod from syncing with your empty iTunes library. Don't release these buttons until your iPod loads in the Sources menu on the left side of the screen.
-
2
Click on your iPod to load it in the center of your iTunes window. Open the Summary tab.
-
-
3
Click on the checkbox that says "Manually Manage Music." It should automatically select the checkbox for "Enable Disk Use." Click "Apply" to save these changes to your iPod settings.
-
4
Click on the Advanced tab and select the checkboxes marked "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" and "Keep iTunes music folder organized." Save these changes.
-
5
Open "My Computer" and double-click the drive letter that represents your iPod.
-
6
Select "Tools" from the menu bar and click "Folder Options." Click "View" and select the button marked "Show Hidden Files And Folders." Click "OK" to save this change.
-
7
Open iTunes and click "File" and "Add Folder to Library." Select your iPod from My Computer and double-click on the folder named "iPod_Control." Select "Music" and click "Select Folder" to begin importing the music from your iPod. ITunes will save a copy of each file to the iTunes Music folder on your hard drive.
-
8
Authorize iTunes to play purchased songs. If you are copying songs that you have purchased from iTunes, you may need to reauthorize your computer to play them. Click "Store" in the iTunes menu and select "Authorize Computer." Enter your iTunes Store username and password and press "Enter" to complete the authorization.
-
1
