I decided to go with a fresh start for my 80GB iPod 5th generation and restored/reset it using iTunes on Mojave. Everything went well except for this minor detail. Before the reset, whenever I plugged the iPod in I would see it on the desktop as an iPod. Now, when I plug it in it shows up as a removable drive. Is there any way to get it back to the iPod icon? I have attached photos of what I see now and what I would like it to be. Apologies if the second photo is unclear it was the best example I could find; I took it off a youtube video.
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iPod iPod 5th Gen appearance on desktop
- Thread starter kwajaffa
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You can fix it. When you open iTunes, your iPod should be represented by the correct icon. All of the icons for the different iPods can be found inside iTunes 12.9.5 (the version I have on Mojave) in /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources
Use Control-click to navigate to there. Press Command-I over your iPod drive icon, then drag the desired icon file from the iTunes resources folder to replace the generic USB icon in the top left.
Use Control-click to navigate to there. Press Command-I over your iPod drive icon, then drag the desired icon file from the iTunes resources folder to replace the generic USB icon in the top left.
Thank you! This worked a treat. It looks like this now (below).
One thing I noticed is that in the Finder preferences, on the General tab where we see 'Show these items on the desktop', selecting/de-selecting 'CDs, DVDs and iPods' has no effect. Selecting/de-selecting 'External disks' results in the iPod appearing/disappearing on the desktop. It seems the OS recognizes the iPod as an External disk only but not as an iPod device. Anyhoo, this is a nice workaround. Thanks once again.
I'm leaning towards bug. I bought my iPod in 2009 and I don't recall having to do anything special for it to show like this previously. Also I tested with an external DVD drive and it behaves like my iPod used to (before I restored it). DVD comes up when plugged in, goes away if 'CDs, DVDs and iPods' is deselected in Finder preferences. No icon manipulation required.
I suspect this has to do with the 'Enable disk use" option in iTunes which lets you use the iPod's drive as an external USB hard drive. I had initially believed that it was just a bug with later versions of iTunes/macOS that failed to assign the iPod icon correctly, but the fact that it does not show up under the 'CDs DVDs and iPods' category leads me to believe it has to do with that setting.
I'm glad this came up however, I was attempting to answer this yesterday but it took me so long to find it out myself that philden had already answered. I did eventually find it, the only caveat is that in older versions of iTunes the icons are inside a .rsrc file that needs to be unpacked first (I'm using Sierra). This is very useful for doing shell swaps on older iPods, as it will still show the wrong icon on the desktop. Always bugged me.
I'm glad this came up however, I was attempting to answer this yesterday but it took me so long to find it out myself that philden had already answered. I did eventually find it, the only caveat is that in older versions of iTunes the icons are inside a .rsrc file that needs to be unpacked first (I'm using Sierra). This is very useful for doing shell swaps on older iPods, as it will still show the wrong icon on the desktop. Always bugged me.
