The technology of the iPod allows you to easily transfer songs and music from your iPod to the computer. It is a little more problematic when you want to copy music from iPod to computer, however.
There are programs specially made for that type of transfer, and they make it fast and easy to move music from iPod to computer. You should look online and study the features of a few such programs before making a decision on which one to purchase.
However, without the use of such a program, the following are steps you may follow to copy music from iPod.
• Double click on ‘My Computer’ to open it.
• Click on the ‘Tools’ menu.
• Select ‘Folder Options’.
• Select the ‘View’ tab.
• Look for 'Advanced Settings' and make sure the radio button is selected for 'Show hidden files and folders'.
• Leave ‘My Computer’ open, and plug the iPod into a USB port on the computer. ‘My Computer’ will create a drive for the iPod with its name on it.
• Double click on the iPod's drive (if not already opened - sometimes the drive will be created and will also automatically open).
• Double click on the folder ‘iPod Control’, and then double click on the folder 'music'.
In the 'music' folder you will find your music, organized in a number of different folders, which will have different file names.
That is not a problem, since the files’ ID3 tags will allow them to be recognized by iTunes or any other program you may use to move music from iPod to computer.
• Create a folder on your computer, and put in it a copy of all the sub-folder files.
• Copy all the music files in one folder, and discard all the other iPod folders that were created.
At this point, there should be 1 folder saved to your hard drive, which contains every music file that was contained in the many folders you previously had in the 'music' folder.
• Access the iTunes icon on your computer.
• Double click to open.
• Select ‘Edit’, then ‘Preferences’.
• Select the ‘Advanced’ tab.
• Select the ‘General’ tab.
• Look for the folder in which you copied all music files from the iPod - click ‘Change’ to reveal.
• 'Keep iTunes Music folder organized' should be checked.
• Click ‘OK’.
To remove duplicate songs in the iTunes library, delete those songs that are both in the iTunes library and on the iPod. A quick and simple way to achieve this is to access the iTunes folder and delete the songs individually, by albums, or by deleting artists.
• Once that is done, to move music from iPod to computer, click 'File', and then 'add folder to library'.
• Next close the folder containing your songs on your computer.
All songs will next be re-imported by iTunes into the library. Because the 'Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized' box was checked, iTunes will set about organizing and renaming your songs to their correct names, folders and albums.
The time it takes to copy music from iPod to computer will vary with the quantity of songs and music that was on the iPod. The process is now complete. Return to My Computer, and then uncheck ‘Show hidden files and folders'.