iPod Play iPod through Mac?

[MacKenzie999]

Hey everyone...

I'd like to be able to play my ipod through my mac at work, without copying all my music onto the mac. I have good speakers attached to the mac that I'd like to run the ipod through, but it's a pain to get behind the mac to swap cables. I'd love to just firewire the ipod and play it that way.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[lilaliend]

All you have to do is set the iPod to manual. When you plug it into any other computer you'll be able to view, play, and manage all the playlists within the iPod thru iTunes on which ever computer.

 

[ijimk]

wow i might try that too...

 

[Jedi128]

???

Well, of course..... Have you never plugged your iPod into a computer before? Or are you looking for a way to play through your mac without plugging anything into it?

 

[MacKenzie999]

???

Well, of course..... Have you never plugged your iPod into a computer before? Or are you looking for a way to play through your mac without plugging anything into it?

Neither, but thanks for the sarcasm. Just looking for a way to play my ipod through a mac it is not linked to. It shows up in my iTunes window but is greyed out and unplayable.

 

[dan-o-mac]

How about using a splitter.

 

[MattG]

Just do what lilaliend said...I use it like this all the time.

Go to Preferences, iPod, and there is a setting for "Manual." This makes it so you manually control what goes on and off of your iPod, and it also makes it so you can play songs that are on the iPod through the computer.

 

[Jedi128]

Oh, sorry, I didnt realize that when you have it on automatic upload you can't play your music. I never use automatic upload so I didn't know that.............

 

[dauber]

Sorry to revive this super-old thread, but is there a reasonable way to do this now that Apple totally ruined the system? Seems that the only thing you can do when you connect an iPod is drag-and-drop or sync; can't even directly, say, change a misspelled song title -- you have to delete the song and re-sync it.

But I stubbornly hold on to my iPod Classic (fit with 384 gigs on microSD) and have yet to find a better way to portably listen to my stuff. (Touch screens suck; I can only deal with playing music and podcasts that way in an emergency.)

What I always did was listen to podcasts while I'm working, with the iPod connected to my iMac and playing through the iMac. I might pick up and move to another room and listen on another device, or maybe take a walk or mass transit and continue listening through headphones, etc. But now even Retroactive is no longer supported and with the latest macOS updates is making iTunes less and less reliable.

Long story short: how can I use my iMac to listen to stuff that is residing on my iPod? I am NOT asking about transferring contents to my iMac but KEEPING IT on the iPod.

 

[Slix]

@dauber You should be able to change song titles/lyrics/rating/whatever in the Music app and have it sync back when you plug in your iPod. No deleting necessary. Not sure what you mean by that.

But to answer your other question, I've used LineIn for years on older Macs by using an aux cable from the iPod to the computer's line-in port. It's outdated now, but I used it on a Mac with 10.11 El Capitan for a while and it worked fine. Worth a try: https://www.rogueamoeba.com/legacy/

 

[dauber]

@Slix - with iTunes, I could actually click straight onto a song that was already on the iPod or iPhone and edit it right then and there. Can't do that now with the Music app -- you have to edit it in the Music app and then re-sync, as you said, putting that extra step in. Which is annoying after doing it the other way for, ohh...I stopped counting after 15 years.

And yeah, I've been doing the line-in thing lately by plugging my iPod into the aux port in my computer speakers, but it's a pain; can't control the iPod through the computer that way, like hitting "Play" on the keyboard, etc.

 

[Slix]

@Slix - with iTunes, I could actually click straight onto a song that was already on the iPod or iPhone and edit it right then and there. Can't do that now with the Music app -- you have to edit it in the Music app and then re-sync, as you said, putting that extra step in. Which is annoying after doing it the other way for, ohh...I stopped counting after 15 years.

And yeah, I've been doing the line-in thing lately by plugging my iPod into the aux port in my computer speakers, but it's a pain; can't control the iPod through the computer that way, like hitting "Play" on the keyboard, etc.

Ah, I see what you mean. I never edited on the device itself before - did it sync back to the computer then, or was it only until the next sync, or how did it work if you edited metadata on the iPod first? That's really interesting.

I can understand the annoyance with both of those issues, especially if you've been used to doing it that way for a while. Apple Music's app is definitely a downgrade compared to iTunes, which is a huge bummer.