Looking for a way to get mp3s off an ipod

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Sunday, 23. September 2012. 21.22.50 JD wrote:
> On 09/23/2012 09:10 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:
> > I have an old 80GB iPod that has a bunch of music on it that I'd like
> > to get off.

Good luck.

> > I've tried to use gtkpod, but the stock export dumps everything into
> > one directory. That's not very useful.
> > 
> > Does anyone know of a way to dump an iPod to my filesystem with the
> > format:
> > 
> > /home/Music/ipod/[artist]/[album]/[track]
> 
> Is your ipod filesystem mounted on Linux when you plug your ipod into USB?

No, generically it isn't. iPod (and iPhone, and I suspect other stuff from 
Apple) does not allow its filesystem to be visible via USB transparently. One 
has to use iTunes or gtkpod or some other program in order to communicate with 
the iPod.

Furthermore, even if one manages to mount the iPod filesystem somehow (there 
are ways to do that, at least on a jailbroken iPod), it will not help the OP. 
Namely, the music files on the iPod filesystem itself are all dumped in one 
single big directory, while the artist/album/track structure is being 
maintained in a database.

Thank Apple.

The OP should probably use gtkpod to dump all the music files into a single 
directory onto the computer, then copy the appropriate database file from the 
iPod, open it and rename all files according to the database entries.

I don't know if there are any tools that might automate that process. Windows 
and OSX users use iTunes to "synchronize music libraries" across various 
devices. Linux, however, does not seem to be supported by Apple...

HTH, :-)
Marko