iPod touch Copying Music files from iPod Touch 4th Gen

[jazzbo]

My wife recently found her old iPod Touch 4th Gen, and it still worked fine once we charged it. However, she would like to backup some of the songs that are on the iPod.

I've tried various online resources/guides to mount the iPod so we can transfer off the files. Most seem to suggest going into finder and turning on hidden files, or going through the terminal (where as an old Unix guy I'm slightly more familiar) and copying the files from there. However, I can't seem to get the iPod to mount.

It shows up in Finder, and I can see the options. I have "Manually manage music, movies and TV shows" checked. But when I go to the "Files" section it only shows folders for two apps. the cmd-shift-. trick doesn't show anything more (altough it does in other finder windows) and I don't see the iPod under /Volumes in the file system. My understanding is that typically you can see a iPod Control folder.

(Her Mac is running Sequoia 15.1.1 if that is a factor.)

Any ideas on what I might need to do to see the music files on the iPod so I can copy them off? Thanks.

 

[Grumpus]

With the iPod attached and the Finder General tab selected, click Enable disk use under options. In the Finder side panel you should now see two icons for the iPod, one of which will show the contents of the iPod's disk when you click it. Type Shift+Cmd+. to show hidden files and you should see the iPod_Control folder and a Music folder inside of that. Subfolders inside of the Music folder contain all of the music files, unfortunately with unhelpful names. At this point, you can drag the Music folder onto your Desktop to save it.

You can also import the music files from the iPod directly into the Music.app, but first you'll have to open a Terminal and remove the hidden flag from the files on the iPod. Assuming your iPod is mounted as /Volumes/iPod, you'd type:

chflags -R nohidden /Volumes/iPod/iPod_Control

Now you should be able to import the music via the Music.app File -> Import... menu, choosing iPod_Control as the source. iPods are slow, so the import can take quite a while. If you want to avoid disturbing your existing music library, you can create a new library by holding down the option key while starting Music.app, at which point you'll be invited to select a library or create a new one.

EDIT: Ooops, I just noticed the 'Touch' part of your wife's iPod. I've never had a Touch model, so no guarantees, but it's worth a shot. The above steps definitely work with non-Touch iPods. Please let us know how they work for you.

 

[jazzbo]

There is no "Enable Disk Use". I don't think that was an option on later model iPods.

 

[Grumpus]

Ok, sorry about that. I connected my old 1st gen iPhone SE and see the same thing. You might want to look at iMazing. There is a free trial, but it's limited as to how much you can copy (see their FAQ).