Rebuild a Lost iTunes Library from an iPod?

Option 1:
Assuming you’re moving files legally between your own computers, check out iPodAgent at http://www.ipodsoft.com/

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Option 2:
The manual way around this problem is to use the iPod in its alter ego - that of a portable computer disk drive.

Start with the iPod disconnected from the computer

DO NOT CONNECT THE IPOD YET

Open iTunes
Open iTunes Preferences - this blocks iTunes from seeing an iPod connection; leave the preferences window up and running
Connect the iPod to the computer, wait about 15 seconds before continuing
Open ‘My Computer’
Tools menu, Folder Options, View tab, enable ’show hidden files /folders’
Open iPod icon in My Computer
Open iPod_Control folder
You should see a folder named Music
Drag this folder to somewhere on your computer hard drive

After the copy completes, right-click the new Music folder on your hard drive and select ‘Properties’
Cear the checkmark next to ‘Hidden’
Close that explorer window
Eject iPod from System tray “Safely Remove Hardware” icon. This icon looks like a small gray rectangle with a green arrow floating above it. It’s only there when a removable device (like the iPod in this case) is attached to the computer.
Right-click & select ‘Safely remove..’, then click ‘Stop’ in the next window, OK in the next window, and then Close to complete the ejection.

Disconnect the iPod from the computer

Go back to iTunes, cancel the preferences window
File menu \ Add folder to Library \ find that Music folder copied over from the iPod

Your iTunes library should be back in action! But wait - there’s more!!

Long time forum regular Otto42 has a java script/program that can also retrieve the playlists themselves from the iPod as well. Here are his instructions and a link to the most recent thread discussing this tricky process:

This is really useful when you’re pulling all the songs off of an iPod to put them back into iTunes, because you lost your library or anything along those lines.

Download this program:
http://otto.homedns.org:8888/iTunes/iPodGetXML.zip
(If you can’t download it, try again later. The connection goes up and down a lot.)

Now, put the iPod into Disk Mode or otherwise access the iPod as a drive. Make sure you can see hidden files, then go to the drive and the iPod_Control folder and find the iTunesDB file. Copy it to your PC.

Put the copied iTunesDB file in the same directory as this program, then run the program. It’ll read the iTunesDB, get all the playlists, and create an XML file for each one. Now just import those XML files into iTunes to recreate the playlists.

Notes:
(1) The songs in playlist must already be in the iTunes library. If any one of them isn’t there, iTunes throws up an error when you try to import the XML file.
(2) The song names, artist names, and album names in the library all must be identical as to what the iPod has. If you just copied all the music off the iPod and into iTunes, this will be the case, so it’s generally not a big deal. but you’ll get an error if it can’t find the song in the iTunes library, so it’s something to keep in mind.
(3) It probably won’t be able to cope with unusual characters in song names. Dealing with unicode is way annoying.
(4) Smart Playlists get changed into regular playlists.

And there you have it. I picked these instructions up somewhere along the way, and they’ve just been sitting here on my computer. I thought someone out there might find these useful at some point in time - I know I will.

If you liked what you read, you may also enjoy:

CopyTrans: Restore, Rebuild, Repopulate iTunes library from iPod, iPhone & iPod Touch with all personal settings

Listen to your iPod at Work - Master Volume Consistency

Do-It-Yourself Laptop & iPod Repair

Venerable Discharge

33 Responses to “Rebuild a Lost iTunes Library from an iPod?”

on 08 Aug 2007 at 7:59 am Rob

The best way to Rebuild a Lost iTunes Library from an iPod is CopyTrans http://www.copytrans.net/
This tool takes your iPod songs plus your playlists, ratings, play count, last played, etc and imports them automatically into iTunes in litterally one click.
on 08 Aug 2007 at 8:04 am Jeff Sickles

Rob, I took a quick look at copytrans.net - Without downloading the product, I couldn’t tell if the free version was just a demonstration or if it would retain it’s functionality as long as the user kept it. I will keep your advertisement on this article if you will share a little more about copytrans free versus the copy available for purchase? Thanks!
on 22 Sep 2007 at 6:31 pm me

music rescue is a bit more of a hassle, more than one click…but it’s still very good to use
on 09 Oct 2007 at 11:24 pm jeff

….You can just download WinAMP. It has iPod support and all you have to do to copy your music from pod to computer is right click the artist/album/whatever and select “Copy To Local Media”.

Pretty simple.
on 10 Oct 2007 at 9:42 am Jeff Sickles

Thanks for the note Jeff! I’ll have to give that a try. I haven’t used winamp in a long time.
on 14 Mar 2008 at 9:05 pm Sean

Thanks Jeff.

I’ve used the info on this page twice now. 1 hard disk failure and 1 new PC.

Sean
on 28 Mar 2008 at 9:45 am Katie

Thanks! Really useful, worked perfectly and much more helpful than the official apple support!
on 19 Jun 2008 at 1:30 am travis

What about for users of Macs?
on 03 Aug 2008 at 8:57 pm Jeff M.

i just tried to use the free version of Copytrans, and it just limits you to 100 songs to transfer back to your ipod. you have to buy the full version to transfer more than 100 songs back to iTunes.
on 09 Aug 2008 at 2:09 pm Jeff Sickles

Anyone have any solutions for MAC?
on 09 Aug 2008 at 2:09 pm Jeff Sickles

Jeff - that’s true, it does cost $20 to move your complete library. But that’s cheap considering the investment you may have had. What did you end up doing?
on 09 Aug 2008 at 3:19 pm travis

I purchased a download for $8 that did the trick. It was simple to install, use, and the support was great.

I was hesitant to spend the money because I knew there was something out there for free, but I found that most of the directions were for Windows and you needed some tech savvy that I did not have to go behind the scenes of the computer.

I wanted simple and now. Here is the info (you can also do a search for PodWorks).

Simply visit the PodWorks store site and purchase a copy for $8 US (most updates are free to existing users).

http://store6.esellerate.net/store/catalog.aspx?s=STR712616860&pc=

The trial version you downloaded becomes your full version after you enter the serial number that will be automatically emailed to you. There is no separate shipment or download.
on 09 Aug 2008 at 4:15 pm Jeff M.

i just ended up using iDump, i lost the playcount, ratings, etc, but that was unimportant to me. iDump is free, and it puts all your songs back in itunes. the link to the download i used is: http://www.download.com/iDump/3000-2169_4-10407429.html
on 09 Aug 2008 at 4:17 pm Jeff M.

as for a Mac, i dont have one, but i looked around and found this: http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/?gclid=CPie3sjJgZUCFQ4RnQodVRBjrA
i dont know how useful it is, since im not a mac user, but check it out
on 10 Aug 2008 at 7:38 am Jeff Sickles

Thanks Travis and Jeff for your insight!
on 28 Feb 2009 at 7:37 pm Jess

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!

You saved 1400 songs aka my life.

Exaggeration. But thanks!!
on 17 Mar 2009 at 7:47 pm Pat

Thanks - simple instructions, easy to follow, worked perfectly!
on 09 May 2009 at 12:03 pm Sarah

Thank you so much for this! My mum’s music has been gone for nearly a year which she has been really upset about, and none of us are very good on a computer. She’s over the moon! She has ALL of her songs back! This was amazing, thank you ever so much for posting this!
on 21 May 2009 at 12:25 am Daniela

I’m so thankful for this info… My music is back!!

so useful! so simple!!

god thanks!
on 26 May 2009 at 1:58 am Samantha

“Dealing with unicode is way annoying”

Hahaha Jeffery Sickles you glorious man I actually bought a program for $33 (CopyToys Ipod to Computer Transfer) and it hardly worked after trying to copy over 6000 songs over it only copied half so I had no idea which were there ones that were left out so I downloaded Pod to PC which just allowed me to view a tick next to songs that were already in the library - very helpful. However I found that this program failed to actually copy of them over save or 6! (And it claimed to be entirely free..)

Also, when I tried to email CopyToy on the ONE support email provided on their site to get help - it came back to me. Thanks Guys. So I ended up just slowly copying them over with this program in small chunks. Long and tedious..

If only I had reached this page before then.. But Ill know for next time! There should be more kind souls like you out there Mr Sickles!!

Thanks!

Sam
on 04 Jun 2009 at 5:59 pm Drew

i cannot connect to the website for this playlist program, anyone wanna help me out, maybe email the program to me?

thanks,
Drew
on 08 Jun 2009 at 10:01 pm Cinamon

Hi all, Can anyone help me get my library back? I was having a good old time updating my ipod from our library and new songs for myself and my daughter and then I plugged my second daughter’s ipod into the screen and (the little square one) and had a problem after it loaded. I tried to get the album covers for the library as a nice little touch and pow. The whole library is lost. I can see the files and album names in folders but when I open the folder there is nothing. Can anyone help!!
on 08 Jul 2009 at 8:21 pm Becky

Fantastically helpful! After many hours of frustration, I was finally able to recover MY songs. Very simple…thanks!
on 21 Aug 2009 at 7:08 am Cat

Thank you so much.

I was going crazy trawling the net looking for a way to rescue my music without having to pay for software or download anything, and this is the most useful method I found.

And the instructions were simple! Most of the time I stare blankly when someone tries to explain computer stuff to me but I understood this perfectly.

Thanks again!
on 22 Aug 2009 at 2:19 pm Christian

Hey - thanks for putting these up. I got everything back. One question though, all of the names of the songs were changed to 4-character alpha codes like ‘ADEZ’, even though the album and artist names are OK. Any thoughts?
on 03 Jan 2010 at 1:56 pm Heather

I just got a new computer with Windows Home 7 - I have used your ipod restore directions before with Vista and they worked great. However, today is my first day with this new computer and I am trying to get my itunes loaded back up onto it using my ipod. The instructions are harder to follow now, because I don’t see the same traditional menus like “tools” in the new Windows. Any help would be appreciated! thanks
on 14 Jun 2010 at 10:27 pm Anna

WOW! thank you so much! my laptop went into the shop and was reformatted and i thought i had my music on my back up harddrive..long story short i didn’t have it there so i used your easy to follow steps and i have my music back thank you thank you thank you!
on 21 Dec 2010 at 4:02 am blurayripper

How wonderful the blog is! It is the just the thing I am looking for, thank you to provide it here!
on 24 Feb 2011 at 11:54 am joanna

I can’t seem to find the “ipod” icon that was supposed to be in “my computer”.. what should i do?
could it be because i have an ipod touch, is there any difference?
on 05 May 2011 at 4:10 pm Liz

Thank you. this saved me over 5000 songs that i dont have anywhere else.
on 22 May 2011 at 8:19 pm Liz B.

Thank you so much for this! I got nearly all of my music back!!!
on 14 Aug 2011 at 3:39 pm Renny M

Can’t tell you how many sites I searched (including Apple’s!) before I found these easy-to-follow instructions. And then I confess I put off trying them for WEEKS because I was so terrified I was going to lose the music on my iPod. No new iTunes for me during this period, but at least I could still listen to the 509 songs I had in the car and at the gym. But today, I held my breath and crossed my fingers and said a prayer and (finally!) went for it. AND IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!

You are a wonderful human being for taking the time to post this. Thank you so much!
on 05 Jan 2012 at 4:45 pm Mel

I’m guessing this also works for an iPad??

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