The Gadgets Page

March 15, 2007

Make Sure You Have a Backup of your iPod

Filed under: Audio and Video — Laura Moncur @ 6:00 am

A touching and endearing story detailing why you should have a backup of the music on your iPod.

Just the other day, Mike and I were talking about this issue. I didn’t believe that anyone would have a bunch of music on their iPod that wasn’t backed up to their computer somehow, and then I found out that the Nike+ Drive soundtrack I downloaded from iTunes only existed on my Nano and nowhere else.

Somehow it had slipped through the cracks.

My copy of Nike+ Drive is safe now. Unfortunately, Susi is not so lucky. After leaving her iPod on the plane, she has lost over half of her collection. She has to painstakingly recreate her collection, but you can save yours right now. The best situation to be in is to never have to retrieve music off your iPod, but if you are in that situation right now, there is some software that can do that for you:

Be forewarned that Apple could break this software at any time and make it unable to backup the music on your iPod. I haven’t had to use any of these programs, so I can’t recommend any of them. I just thought you might want to know they exist. If you have had experience with any of them, please leave a comment on this entry telling us if they suck or not.

The best thing to do is to make a double copy of your music: one on your computer’s hard drive and one on a backup drive such as a different hard drive or even an online backup system. That will ensure that you will never have to try to get music off your iPod onto a new computer after a drive crash. Sync your iPod regularly and take extra precautions when you get a new computer so that all your music is transferred correctly.

28 Comments

  1. I have already lost over 1000 songs ($1000) as a result of computer crashes / probs in the past. If you ask me Apple should offer to back it up on a “simple list” file and should offer to restore for a fee. This way everyone wins and noone is left open to a liability lawsuit. In the mean time I am having a hell of a time as a result of what I believe to be Apple’s recent protection against sites lie these where my most recent burned CDs will now no longer play on my car CD player – what a waste!

    Comment by MTD — March 30, 2007 @ 7:48 am

  2. I have recently used the Senuti program. I had no complaints about it. I recently switched from a Dell PC to a Macbook thanks to the hard drive crashing on the PC. I was able to get everything off of the hard drive except for the music. I had all of it on my ipod but I did not have it on any type of hard drive. I googled “how to back up music from a windows ipod to a mac ipod.” Senuti popped up and I gave it a try and everything has worked great. All of my music made it over even though my ipod shows up as being formatted as a windows ipod. Everything works on my Macbook, video ipod and ipod nano. I have even added and deleted some songs on each device with no hassle. The best thing about Senuti is it is freeware although I encourage those who use it to leave a donation. I have had experince with “ipod copy” and it was another great program if you are using a PC. Ipod copy allows you to “test” it with 50 free transfers and then you have to buy the program to use it as much as you like. The cost is $20 which really is not that bad when you start talking about libraries with thousands of songs and the time and effort that go into getting them in the first place. I cannot remember if ipod copy does video transfers as well but I do know that Senuti does bc it transfered 3 football games that were on my ipod. Hopeully this helps.

    Comment by Brian — March 30, 2007 @ 9:56 am

  3. I use the CopyPod program and love it. I have about 850 CD’s that I have moved to my PC, hooked my PC to my stereo and boxed up the discs… after about 2 months spent ripping CD’s, I figured I had better come up with a way of backing these up, so I came across CopyPod and backed everything else up to a second PC. If you’re anal like me, you’ve got everything in playlists, with album art and such… CopyPod will import all of that along with the tunes themselves. CopyPod does seem to work better with older versions of itunes though. I was on 7.1 and was getting intermittent errors… but for unrelated reasons (7.1 skipped on my HTPC), rolled back to 6. something, works error free again. They offer a free trial version that will allow you to import 100 songs (I believe?), before it cuts you off, so give it a shot.

    Comment by Chris — March 30, 2007 @ 10:11 am

  4. I use Titanize (www.titanize.com) to back up my important data, including my music. Nothing like an automated online backup to make sure that, even if I lost my computer AND my iPod (say, in a fire), that all my music is safe.

    Comment by Peter — March 30, 2007 @ 1:24 pm

  5. Why would apple make it unable to save music, for the reasons that you would buy what you lost back? I like the fact that you can backup your music b/c if you are like me and you have alot of money invested in it, you dont want anything to happen to it. <>

    Comment by Tyler — March 30, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

  6. Truthfully, a program is not needed. You are able to copy files directly from your ipod to the computer. You just turn on hidden files on My Computer, click on you ipod, then music, then copy all those folders and paste them into a folder on your computer. It might take awhile and the tracks will show up with random unidentifiable names but as soon as you add it to itunes all of your song information appears. Warning, although I have done this several times without an issue, it is still iffy about what the reprocussions could be.

    Comment by Caty — March 30, 2007 @ 3:48 pm

  7. i’ve used idump. its pretty simple and works for me. and its free.

    Comment by chong — March 30, 2007 @ 7:43 pm

  8. Can these programs be used to transfer music from a Creative Zen?

    Comment by Candy — March 30, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

  9. Some facts. DMR means apple cant allow you to copy songs back off ipod in its own software….DMR is music industry choice not apple. If you own cd’s then no need for back up. if you purchased content online then you should back it up to a cd “copy’s of itunes can be put on 5 differing computers and a data cd or dvd .. its software allows for it and help you mange your whole library in this way” if you buy a sog online put it on ipod and then cancel the song on your comp you do not deserve a new copy from apple…. if you purchased a cd and copied it and tossed it away you would not ask for new cd from store …same concept for digital property. if you have the song on any meduim and copied it to ipod and the meduim failed or computer failed and the only copy was on your ipod i can completely understand the need and morals behind copying off of your ipod for back up purposes. However i feel that all involved need to understand and respect why it is the way it is … it is not so hard you cant do it, but it is hard enough to keep honest people honest. IMHO

    Comment by Bob — March 30, 2007 @ 8:56 pm

  10. I made dvd back-up masters of my cd collection which I then upload into my ipod via itunes. Took some time but well worth the peace of mind.

    Comment by patrick — March 30, 2007 @ 9:13 pm

  11. i use ephpod…tried ALL the above…none is like ephpod…www.ephpod.com

    Comment by christos — March 30, 2007 @ 9:50 pm

  12. I made copies of all the music I have (even if they aren’t loaded into my ipod) into dvd.And the ipod songs, are also stored into my pc hard drive.That way I have extra copies…just in case.

    Comment by Belle — March 30, 2007 @ 10:28 pm

  13. I’m computer stupid, but can someone tell me if you can backup your music onto a flash drive?

    Comment by molly — March 31, 2007 @ 12:17 am

  14. How does one transfer the play count from an iPod to iTunes? My computer once wiped all the songs from iTunes, so i had to get the songs back from my iPod, but without the play count.

    Comment by Kan — March 31, 2007 @ 1:43 am

  15. Can you back-up your music to an external drive? I try it, but somehow failed. Any comment.

    Comment by peter — March 31, 2007 @ 1:56 am

  16. I think is time to voycot Apple. An e4e.

    Comment by Jose — March 31, 2007 @ 11:15 am

  17. Hi guys. I spent numerous hours testing and comparing iPod backup softwares, free or not. I can tell you that the only one that does it decently is CopyPod. It’s the only one I tried that imported all my iPod meta data to iTunes without screwing anything. I had an empty library, that little tool rebuilt it from my iPod in no time. Go for it!

    Comment by Mister Mike — April 2, 2007 @ 12:54 am

  18. I used idump. It works great and it is free. You just have to open the files in the “my music” folder and drag them into itunes. It’s easy and it works great. :)

    Comment by Beck — April 6, 2007 @ 7:10 pm

  19. I can’t live without the program Anapod (by Red Chair software)…it does all this an more to IPOD’s and has other versions available for other mp3 players. http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/

    Comment by Rusty — April 9, 2007 @ 3:03 pm

  20. which of these also offers to back up videos on your ipod?

    Comment by alias — September 25, 2007 @ 2:34 am

  21. Hi the “ipod access for windows” is a good software but it needs to be bought. There is an alternative option, a free software called “Aimersoft iPod Copy Manager” is available. But Amerisoft cannot copy the content on the ipod if the ipod is set to “automatic mode”, it should be set to manual mode and then the content on the ipod will be visible on Aimersoft ipod manager. In order to do that run “ipod access for windows” and it has the option to change the ipod to manual mode, after that use Aimersoft to copy the files on ipod.

    Comment by hemrajr — December 27, 2007 @ 3:26 am

  22. CopyTrans can not only backup your songs and videos, but it can also copy your podcasts, tv shows and photos to your PC or iTunes. It’s actually very good. I just tried it out with my iPhone and it worked just right. download from http://www.copytrans.net

    Comment by Daril — January 3, 2008 @ 8:54 am

  23. Senuti worked great for me. Im using OS x 10.5.1

    Comment by Geoff — February 7, 2008 @ 3:57 pm

  24. Copygear by anapod is perfect.

    Comment by mito — March 5, 2008 @ 9:42 pm

  25. I recently purchased my first iPod, the iTouch. I’d been using other MP3 players in the past such as SanDisk. It’s so simple with these you simple drag and drop your files onto a directory on the PC. If I had known you couldn’t back up your iPod music I never would have purchased it. If I was Microsoft I would make advertisements showing an iPod user trying to desperatly save the content of his iPod after his Mac crashed (of course they never crash according to Apple).

    Comment by Richard — July 15, 2008 @ 4:58 am

  26. You rocks guy! Thanks you very much! I used COPYTRANS to backup my iphone and now all my music are in safe place->iTunes! XOXO Angela P

    Comment by Angela — October 3, 2008 @ 8:10 am

  27. This is all well and good but none of those are free and work for macs. The music on my ipod is from about five different family computers (my dad’s music, my brother’s, etc.), some of which have long been replaced. My brother’s ipod died the other day and I suddenly realised that if mine does the only way I can get all my music back is through excessive illegal downloading or spending a LOT of money on CDs, neither of which i want to do: I’ve payed for most of it once already.. Help!

    Comment by Huggies — March 8, 2009 @ 2:58 am

  28. I downloaded Senuti and am thrilled how easy and functional it is! Finally I have my music collection that means so much to me, backed up, thank you for this article!

    Comment by Helaina — March 9, 2009 @ 10:18 am

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