How to Get Music Off your iPod or iPhone
If you’ve ever needed to get music off of your iPod or iPhone and onto a different machine, then you’ll know it’s not always as easy as you’d like it to be. Let’s say you got a new computer or lost your old one, but still have your iPhone or iPod with music files on it. Because the iPod/iPhone is attached to the old computer’s ID, you can’t just hook up the iPod to a new computer and expect to be able to get the files off. So how do you get music, pictures, and videos off of the iPhone or iPod? My personal choice is to use the easy, and free (for Mac users at least) Pod to Mac software, it’s no frills but easy enough to use and reliable.
Update: Pod to Mac was freeware, but now the developer is charging for Mac versions of the application on their site, you can still download the free version on BrotherSoft.com and possibly CNET
Pod to Mac developer
Download Pod to Mac (free for Mac users)
Download Pod to Mac for free via BrotherSoft
You can also transfer music files that you purchased through iTunes using iTunes itself, and if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous you can get music, videos, and whatever else off your iPod using just the Finder. The Finder method doesn’t work with the iPhone or iPod Touch though, so don’t bother if you’re using one of those. Instead of covering the iTunes or Finder methods myself, I’ll point our a nice how-to guide on Endgadget, check it out here:
[…] At the time of this writing, iPhone Explorer was a free download for Mac OS X and Windows, but based on our past experience covering software by the authoring company, myPod Apps, this could change at any time. So if you want to use your iPhone as a flash drive and want to do it for free, I suggest downloading this now or it might go the same pay model as PodToMac when we discussed getting music off your ipod. […]
I use this iPod manager software: http://www.softdiggs.com/syncpod.php
It is great!
Nice. I wish I knew this earlier though..
Cant see where its free for mac users… Its on a 50% off deal..
Free to try, but man it is worth the $9.95 to have this software. It is a VERY hard lesson to learn not having a proper backup, but this tool WILL save you!