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.
May 20th, 2008
I have a jailbroken ipod touch as well and I found the folder. I also have vista and have the not responding problem. Where does it save the music when you select ‘Backup’ ?
June 9th, 2008
I think the problem with the not responding is the application uses one thread for everything causing the GUI to not respond. If it had been written to run the backups on a separate thread it might solve the issue. Other than that great app.
June 11th, 2008
Great!! After searching all over the intenet for a way to move my ipod touch music…I came across your golden entry. Thank you soo much. You are the man!!
July 9th, 2008
Hi, there. Thanks so much for this.
It worked a treat. Yay!
July 23rd, 2008
how do you download iphonebrowser ?
what do i click i cant find an install button
July 31st, 2008
how do i install this? please reply to me a nevetsfarless@aim.com
August 20th, 2008
hey, this seems to be a fix for a problem that many are having with the ‘other’ capacity filling up with music files which you can’t access. so no need for a restore and worked in seconds – great!
September 2nd, 2008
i have a touch and vista, and ive only gotten one not responding error but over all this is great
September 3rd, 2008
how do you get the songs to have their real name and not the special characters given by itunes such as ANPT
September 24th, 2008
ben, i agree completely, i have an iPod Classic and i can get my music (by showing hidden folders), but it’s all four characters. Not really helpful for identifying them. anyone have any solutions?
September 28th, 2008
When i plug in my ipod touch the iphone browser says that it has an error and needs to close, but it runs fine when my ipod isn’t plugged in
September 29th, 2008
nice one man…cheers!!!
October 9th, 2008
Hey thanks for this man.
I’m currently doing it now.
Takes A LONG time
October 17th, 2008
The locations of the music on the iPhone is:
/private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/
November 3rd, 2008
jailbroken 2.0 I found my music in:
root>user>Library>Media>iTunes_Control>Music
November 11th, 2008
hey i know this is offtopic but is there any way to download songs from safari directly to my ipod(jailbreak)
November 17th, 2008
ok after doing this how can I get this guys music back on the itouch along with new music fomr my itunes????
November 26th, 2008
you can get your folder to show artist and title (meta data) by changing a few of the view options. this works if u are using explorer to view the folders anyway. (what u normally use to view stuff on ur computer)
December 17th, 2008
So does this work without jailbreak my iPod?
December 18th, 2008
hey, thatnks so much, my PC broke so i lost everthing and this is the only free way of copying the songs back to my new laptop, im sick of all the shit trails iv been downloading
December 20th, 2008
thx
December 24th, 2008
Thank you so much for publishing this article. I’ve been searching for the past couple hours and stressing over wether or not I could get my music of my iPod Touch onto my iTunes. My computer crashed a couple weeks ago, and I lost several important files, along with my music. iPhoneBrowser did a great job retrieving over 300 songs off of my iPod Touch. Thanks again.
(Btw, I’m still in the process of grabbing all my music of the Touch, but so far, so good (: )
December 25th, 2008
This was awesome! Thank you! It’s BS they make this $hit so difficult. We should be able to have full control of the music on our property! Cheers!
December 29th, 2008
I just want to thank you so much.
i had well over one thousand songs on my ipod touch 32G, and dad reformatted the computer and i lost everything.
I was dreading having to download each and every single one again, and then i found this.
Your amazing.
And i cannot thank you enough.
December 29th, 2008
I have a 16gig iTouch and Vista. I decided to finally give in and buy the App Store for $10 to my iTouch. When you are about to install it, it gives a message that says to install the new update with the App Store, it will wipe out everything on your iPod. Damn it. So you’d think they would give you an option to back up your iPod to Computer… but no, you have to deal with all this garbage first. Really inconsiderate of them, but this program worked great.
To get it ordered and back to my iTunes and iPod, I copied it to my iTunes folder, -make sure you have it “organized”.- (iTunes/Edit/Preferences/Advanced…I have “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized” is checked). After I did this I was good to go.
14.63 gigs of music is taking me 3ish hours to move… not sure why but it runs in the background and doesn’t interfere with browsing on Firefox.
Thanks for the post!
December 29th, 2008
Thanks for the post! This program is great! Cheers!
December 30th, 2008
Thanx man! This is Great!
It takes a long ass time but its worth it. The only program that I found and works.
December 31st, 2008
I am very grateful for this post! I had 49 files (albums) on an Ipod Touch to recover and it took 2 hours but it worked! Use the new beta version with Vista or you’ll get the errors mentioned. Save the file with a name and then import it in to iTunes with the “manage my folders option” and it will re-name them properly and you’ll be ready to go
Thanks Again!
January 5th, 2009
The reason the new ipods dont have disk mode is the apps. if you had disk mode you could take the apps of the ipod and post downloads for free on torrent sites and such. right now this is only possible if you jailbreak the ipod so you can ssh into the ipod and add or remove files, but with disk mode it would be much easier to steal apps, therefore more people would take advantage.
January 6th, 2009
Hi all,
Does anyone know how to do this on the mac? I do not have a pc and I cant find anything on how to get my songs off (and then back onto) my Ipod touch using the mac. If anyone knows can you please respond to me at mako_productions2004@yahoo.com?
Thanks!
January 18th, 2009
The program worked great for my Ipod touch. I was just wondering if i could get the names back for all my songs instead of just mixed letters and numbers.Anyone know how to?
January 18th, 2009
The program worked great for my Ipod touch. I was just wondering if i could get the names back for all my songs instead of just mixed letters and numbers. Whenever i try rename them it says it will make the file unusable.Anyone know how to get the names back?
January 22nd, 2009
I have a jailbroken ipod and found it under
private/var/root/media/itunes_control
hope that helps
February 9th, 2009
Hey i was wondering if it gives you the name of the songs afterwards or not?
February 11th, 2009
For all of those who have been asking. If you put the .mp3’s that you get out of your iPod into iTunes, it should add them with the correct title.
At least that’s how it worked with the Nano.
Does your iPod Touch have to be jailbroken to use this app?
February 11th, 2009
For all of those who have been asking. If you put the .mp3’s that you get out of your iPod (the ones with the crazy four letter codes) into iTunes, it should add them with the correct title.
At least that’s how it worked with the Nano.
Does your iPod Touch have to be jailbroken to use this app?
February 12th, 2009
If you choose the backup option on iPhoneBrowser all you have to do to access the files is go to the function tab and click on “View Backup Files”, it will take you right to them.
February 23rd, 2009
thank god, i need to restore my ipod and was worried that id end up losing the music i bought on my ipod.
February 25th, 2009
Its like having a external hard drive on your phone!! awsome!! I lost all the music on my computer but just put it all back on from my phone!
March 1st, 2009
This is amazing! just in case anyone wants to know where exactly to save here is the file C:\Users\Public\music… this will transfer files to your media player then you can get the music on to iTunes from there
March 6th, 2009
Hi, does this method work the for photos?
March 13th, 2009
you are my hero, i owe you big time!!
thanks sooooo much.
ps. if you click on function-> view backup files, itll take you to where your music is being stored
March 14th, 2009
Backups are saved in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Cranium\iPhoneBrowser
April 19th, 2009
I followed all the step but nothing is happening I just see the green bar (bottom left) loading up. Is it working?
April 29th, 2009
Hi i followed all of the above but nothing seems to be happening i see the green bar (bottom left) loading up but im not sure if its working ?? When i unplug the ipod it says i need to plug it back in for the application to finish ?????
April 30th, 2009
Is it normal for this to take 36 years?
I’m freakin’ dying over here.
Thanks!
April 30th, 2009
Hey guys-
Okay, I just did this..took like 3 hours.
In the beginning when it asked where I want the files, I just put Program Files, for shits & giggles.
My bad for not being more specific.
I can’t find the music anywhere.
Even when I look in iPhoneBrowser Functions/Show Backup Files..the folders are empty.
Can anyone PLEASE HELP?
..Oh, and it’s a iTouch & the OS is Vista.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thank you!!
May 21st, 2009
absolutly amazing!! worked a treat
took about 3 hours but was well worth it
I’m so happy right now hehe
thanks everyone
May 22nd, 2009
Thank you all for the post…..
Learned something new LoL
May 22nd, 2009
Works badass. iPhone 8gb 3G 2.2.1 firmware 5.9 bootloader
Looks like have to go thru each individual file but pulls the music I wanted. Only thing is just pulls artist name and not name of song but this is to easy so is ok with me.
root>user>media>itunes_control>music
then there are the individual folders. click on an .mp3 and click on “preview”……to easy
where can I donate for this app????
May 29th, 2009
If your ipod is jailbroken you should also be able to use winscp or the mac equal to download the media files from your ipod touch. This will work via the wifi connection so there is no need to hook up the USB and risk a sync and the distruction of your files. The down side is you need to move a lot of data over the wifi. It will take longer.
I was going to go that way but I had my fingers crossed that this way with the google app would get the proper file names back. It dont.
June 4th, 2009
the Iphone Winamp Pluggin allows for bidirectional Sync… works on iphone 3g 16gb with itunes 7.7 installed… (i had 8.something but i downgraded trying to use iphonebrowser)
June 7th, 2009
hey um i keep getting an error message saying “iPhoneBrowser has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” help please
June 11th, 2009
Media monkey is free and copies files from an ipod touch to windows computer. and you can select the songs by artist name etc. and just copy the songs you want… it did crash a lot for me but still works if you just move the error report window to the side… http://www.mediamonkey.com/
June 11th, 2009
You are the bomb-diggety-ding-dong-dang!
June 14th, 2009
i’m trying to get this to work..but it keeps saying “Windows Not Working” and asking me to “Send Information” what do i do? because it isn’t working.
June 26th, 2009
Matt: If you are still around, please open an issue at the iPhoneBrowser site on Google Code with details.
And make sure you are trying the latest version, 1.9.1.
June 30th, 2009
Thanks a bunch mate. Got all my music back. Had to rename a few but only took a second. Thanks a TON!
July 4th, 2009
The only thing wrong with this is that it does not get the names of the songs back… Its just random like XIELA…
July 6th, 2009
The program said the files had been extracted but i can’t find them. Time is of the essence. Please respond asap.
July 7th, 2009
Specify the exact location and it should be there. If not, you could always download the archive instead of the installer.
July 13th, 2009
just to let u know, to get ur music if u selected backup, just go to functions, and then view my backup files and it will bring u right to it, mine was \
C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Cranium\iPhoneBrowser
July 18th, 2009
Great work man, will give it ago.
Just lost my HD and have to pull songs off the iPhone.
Hope there not ACC.
July 25th, 2009
iPod to Computer Transfer is designed to help you backup all your files from your iPod.
Learn more, please read get music off ipod and get music off iphone.
July 29th, 2009
to get all my music i went into
mobile
dcim
itunes control
music
and rightcliked on music and saved it to my hard drive
i hope this helps
July 30th, 2009
This is terrific! Thanks a ton!
September 3rd, 2009
Thanks for this is have tried a couple of things to retrieve about 4gig of tunes which i hadn’t backed up. This found them.
September 3rd, 2009
yay! people i know how to get the name for the songs back!! right click music, properties, second tab and there in title it says the music’s name!! copy and paste it to the music’s name..
any questions e-mail me to jkimsito@hotmail.com
September 9th, 2009
I just used this and it worked excellent. My system went from PC then to Mac back to PC and had no problems. Thanks for this post. I have a question about play lists. Anyone know where this file is found on the “touch”. I don’t really want to go through making them again in Itunes or can they be imported back to itunes?
September 12th, 2009
THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH!
September 15th, 2009
I love you bro now I can update my iPod !!!!!!!
September 16th, 2009
Program works But I found a Trojan I have no Internet Where the hell would the virus come from!??? SCAN YOUR COMPUTER
September 17th, 2009
Windows is an infection.
September 19th, 2009
it won’t work for me, everytime i launch the program it says stopped working.
wtf
September 30th, 2009
Thx for this. U ppl keep askinthe same QUESTIONS THT HAVE BEEN ANSWERSD like how do I get the names of the songs. U PUT THEM INTO ITUNES AND CONSOLIDATE LIBRARY (file, library, consolidate library). And wolah, ur music now has names, ur music is places in my music, iTunes
October 24th, 2009
Is there a program which automaticly renames the songs back to there real name instead of FJSN…?
November 4th, 2009
Won’t work for me either, XP Pro SP2, starts reading iPhone and then quits with Windows error message. Damn.
November 5th, 2009
YEa, im haveing the same problem Pix is havin, i open the program and it crasheS….so frustrating!!!