At last I have found a way to copy audio or video files from iPod to any computer. You don’t need to install anything in the computer and also you don’t need to tamper your iPod firmware which may make your warranty void. You can run the program from your iPod itself, which gives you the freedom to transfer files from any computer to your iPod and also vice versa. And before we precede just a line of caution.
Note: Don’t use this program to copy copywrited files. Use this program only for backing up your non copy-writed files.
First things first. You need to download a program called Share pod. You can download the program from its download page. After downloading extract the files from the zip file into a separate directory in your iPod. In order to do this you may have to enable disk mode for your iPod in your iTunes.
Now just double click the ‘SharePod.exe’ file to start the program.
The program will start and then will list the songs and play lists in your iPod. Now select the files that you want to copy to the computer and then click the ‘To PC’ button which is present in the top left corner.
A dialog box will appear. Specify the directory where you want the files to be copied and also select the template to name your file based on artist, album etc. After filling in the dialog box click the transfer button.
The files you have selected will be transferred to your system and once it is done a dialog box will appear confirming the transfer.
That’s it. Your files are now copied to your computer. The program will also generate and import XML file which you can use to import the copied files into your iTunes.
In the similar way you can use this program to transfer files from your computer into iPod without using iTunes at all. But if you are going to do this, then you should disable automatic sync in your iTunes, otherwise the next time you start iTunes it will override all your copied files.
As I have said before (here and here) I was not very happy with iTunes and now SharePod has come to my rescue and now I can separate my iPod from iTunes. If you are still wondering why to use Sharepod instead of iTunes, here is the list of advantages of SharePod
- Ability to copy music back form iPod to computer
- Very fast and small in size
- Requires less memory
- No installation
- The program can be carried in iPod itself
etc.
In spite of all these advantages, SharePod has some disadvantages too.
- Works only in Windows
- No support for podcast. (And because of this I have to still use iTunes for my podcasts)
Hope this is useful and do let me know what you feel about the program.
This article is part of an ongoing series of posts under the title