iPod set to manually update... but still wants to sync?

[aruberu]

Hi, a little backstory behind this. I took my G5 in for repairs, got a data transfer (had an unfortunate mishap last time ), and got it back. I had been running 10.3.9, and it was all the same... except for my iTunes, which had been updated from somewhere around 6 to 7.0.2. Which is fine, I got used it to pretty fast, but I haven't tried using my iPod with it until now...

I've read about syncing, and it sounds very handy. Only problem is that my iPod has some of the music off of my old (pre-pre-repair) computer, and a sizeable amount of playlists, and from what I understand syncing would wipe the contents of that and replace it with G5's library.

I saw the Apple doc that explains how you can either sync or manually transfer music, but some of the options in my iTunes seem to differ. For example, the checkbox that says "manually manage music" was already checked when I plugged in my iPod. So I don't get why the sync option remains.

Will clicking sync now overwrite my iPod? Or will it actually let me manage things manually? I like listening to my iPod through iTunes occasionally, but if this case persists, I might charge it up and just listen to the pod at my desk. <__< Seems kind of sync or swim. (oh, sorry, that was bad)

Many thanks for any help.

 

[bharoche]

You can either manually manage (load and unload) music to your iPod or you can let iTunes do it automatically (sync). They're mutually exclusive. I think if you check one option, the other will automatically be un-checked. Don't try the sync option if you don't want to risk losing some of your iPod music.

If you have music on your iPod that's not on your computer, you can either manually manage the iPod to move the music off the iPod onto the computer -- I think you can do this; never tried -- or for sure use the shareware MusicRescue, which lets you copy music off your iPod to your hard drive. Then import that music from your hard drive into your iTunes library.

I recommend the second way as I know it works. The idea is to get all your music into your iTunes library. Once that's done, I'd recommend using automatic sync'ing as it's easier than manually managing music IMHO.

As for playlists, you can export those from your iPod using MusicRescue but you'd have to (1) first get all the songs into your iTunes library, (2) then export the playlists from the iPod to your desktop, (3) open each playlist file in textpad and do a search and replace to edit the physical path of the music files to the /path/to/your/hard drive/iTunes folder, and (4) then finally import the modified playlist files into iTunes. It's a bit of a pain but not as hard as it sounds.

MusicRescue (formerly PodUtil) lets you copy 50 songs at a time before a nag screen comes up. You can click through that and continue or buy the software. There are some freeware alternative programs that can do basically the same thing but I haven't used them.

 

[aruberu]

Thanks a lot for the help. I actually just discovered what the problem was.

I thought my iTunes would only show the "summary" screen (which asks if I want to restore or sync up my Pod), which had led me to believe I had to sync even though I had it set to manually manage. I just noticed a tiny arrow next to my iPod under the sidebar menu (that lists the Library, Store, Devices) that when clicked, revealed the "Music" option as well as all of my playlists. ¬__¬

I still appreciate the feedback, since otherwise I would have gone with syncing and lost all of that. Thanks again.