How to get music off an iPod Touch, iPhone in Windows
By Jonathan Schlaffer
The iPod Touch and iPhone are not like other iPods; possessing no "disk use" mode. With other iPods it is possible to use that mode to access the flash memory or hard drive directly and pull music off the iPod, this is not possible with the iPod Touch or iPhone. But, there is a free and easy method of getting music from your iPod Touch or iPhone to you PC.
There are several paid programs that will do this for you, one such example is Xplay 3 (Windows only) which is also capable of accessing both Mac and Windows formatted iPods. This is the type of software that you’ll use once, twice or very rarely and is, in my opinion not worth paying for unless you’re going to use it often.
Here is how I went about getting the music off my iPod Touch (this method would also work with an iPhone):
Disclaimer: The iPod Touch used in this example was used with a PC first then a Mac and then a PC again so if you’re going from a Mac to a PC transfer with it, this may not work but you’re free to try.
Step 1, download iPhoneBrowser from GoogleCode.
Step 2, install iPhoneBrowser
Step 3, connect iPod Touch
Step 3a, cancel iTunes synching process if it starts and you don’t want the library on the iPod Touch or iPhone changed
Step 4, launch iPhoneBrowser
In iPhoneBrowser navigate to "iTunes_Control/Music" then right click the Music folder and either select "Backup folder" or "Save Folder In" to select where you want the files saved to.
All those numbered folders contain your music but you won’t recognize any of the files because of the naming system that is used by all iPods. The files still contain the appropriate information and will be there when imported to your media player of choice; if you have AAC files then there is no choice and you’ll be using iTunes.
I don’t know where iPhoneBrowser saves files when you select the backup option, I never could find them so its best to go with the "Save Folder In" option and specify the directory, just pick one that’s to your liking; I used iTunes Music.
There is a downside to iPhoneBrowser and it’s not clear if it’s a Vista problem or just a problem with the program but while it’s transferring files from your iPod Touch or iPhone it will say "Not Responding" but is still working. It will remain in that state until the backup is finished.
I can’t give it points for polish but it works, it’s free and gets files off your iPod Touch or iPhone.
Other utilities such as EphPod should be used by those who have other iPods such as Nanos, Videos or Classics because it and similar utilities rely on the ability of the iPod to be used as mass storage by Windows which the iPod Touch and iPhone can not be and thus require special software.
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May 10th, 2008
The iPod Touch and iPhone are not like other iPods; possessing no “disk use” mode. This is because they both use flash memory for storage which wears out over time.
This is because flash memory only has a limited number of read & erase cycles usually, 100,000 cycles (read/write and erase).
The more you move date to your iPod Touch the more you wear it out.
So to help prevent this Apple has not included the disk use mode on flash based devices. Which should help prolong the life of you iPod.
May 10th, 2008
Clive, that might have worked, except the iPod Nano and Shuffle have a disk use mode as well as the other hard drive iPods. The Nanos use the same flash memory as the iPod Touch/iPhone so your argument doesn’t quite work.
As for prolonging the life of flash memory, well, the read/writes are distributed evenly among the memory cells and average life of the device should be 10 years because you aren’t always performing a full read or write of the device.
Granted, if you do full wipes and restores, then yes, life would be reduced. But simply storing new data or reading data doesn’t reduce the life nearly as much.
Who’s going to have an iPod for more than three or five years before replacing it anyway? I wouldn’t… I get a new one about every two but that’s me, I’m not a “average” consumer so take that as you will.
The fact is that other flash based iPods have the disk use mode and so the iPod Touch/iPhone should have it as well.
May 11th, 2008
I’d be really interested to know the MTBF an cycles theses flash chips employ.
And also the read/write speeds. Iv looked around and cant find anything?
Are Apple using Industrial Grade chips or just your common house hold CF card type?
Lets us know
May 13th, 2008
Jonathan, great worrk there, and that iPhone browser has seem to be the only windows based program communications with my iPod touch outside of iTunes. My only trouble is, I did not get the “iTunes_Control/Music” folder in my list of folders. iTunes was not syncing with my ipod like you said to cancel.
I went through every folder and subfolder and even found my games and programs installed (so I know it’s connecting fine) would jailbreaking be the reason my iPod won’t work with this procedure?
I have in the browser - .svn, Applications, Library, System, bin, cores, dev, etc, private, sbin, tmp, usr, var. And I have checked through every sub folder.
May 14th, 2008
Yes Mark, it certainly appears to be the case. I know someone who has done this too and it won’t work for them either!
May 15th, 2008
The iPod Touch seems to place the music directory in a different folder than the iPhone. You’ll find it in /var/mobile/Media/
May 17th, 2008
That’s interesting because my iPod Touch had the music right there in the iTunes_Control/Music folder. I guess there are differences in the way the iPhone and iPod Touch store data.