I have a 30GB iPod as mobile “entertainer”, which I use for the following purposes:
- Store MP3s
- Store some latest pictures so that I can easily show-off my recent trips to friends
- Store podcasts
However, just like any other iPod owner, I’m facing a kind-of-disappointing iPod “feature”, which only allow songs to be transfered into iPod, and not vice versa (transfer songs from iPod to PC). If given a choice, I don’t really want to keep 2 copies of the GBs of songs, especially in my office laptop; I would rather keep them all in iPod, and transfer any individual song out to PC if needed. But how??
iDump
iDump is a nice freeware released at CodersHole, which allows us to transfer songs from iPod to PC. One nice portability feature, is that we can also simply drop the iDump executable file into iPod root directory, and run it from there. iDump is programmed for Windows PC, and supports all iPod models except Touch and iPhone.
Usage wise, it’s easy, and you can get started without RTFM. Specify your preferred output directory, and you can start copying the songs or playlists in bulk, to your PC. You can also easily search into your iPod songs from iDump.
However, I have a problem with iDump. I have quite a number of Chinese songs in my iPod, but iDump couldn’t correctly display the file attributes written in Chinese characters, which includes but not limited to title, artist and album. It’s my habit to type Chinese words in UTF8 unicode, so it must be the encoding issue with iDump. I never have problems displaying the file attributes in iTunes and my phone.
If you don’t have songs in foreign languages, I would say iDump works perfectly fine! Easy to use, and yet free. People like me, got to look for alternative solution.
Extract Songs from iPod using iTunes
By right, iTunes doesn’t support extraction of songs from iPod. Ya… I said “by right”; but workaround is never impossible 
Alex Smith has written a very detailed article to explain how Windows PC can directly extract songs from iPod using iTunes, with the following summarized steps:
- Configure your Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders
- Uncheck the “hidden” attribute of the iPod_drive:\iPod_Control\Music directory
- Configure your iTunes to manually manage music and videos on iPod
- Add iPod_drive:\iPod_Control\Music folder to iTunes Library
Please visit Alex Smith’s article for detailed explanations. I’ve tested the tricks on the following configurations:
- iPod Classic 30GB, software version 1.3
- iTunes 7.6.2.9
- Windows Vista SP1
The advantage of this workaround, is that I can view and search all my iPod songs, including those files written in Chinese words.
Related Posts:
Interesting iPod Post! Thank you for the great read!