How to copy JUST the PLAYLIST (and not the songs or files) from iPod to iTunes

Here's the situation:

I'd (accidentally) erased my itunes library on the computer. That meant i had to reimport all the songs (which I keep in a seperate MP3 folder, called C:\MP3\). That part is easy. What I needed though, was to copy the playlists from the ipod to itunes.

Every 3rd party hack out there (touchcopy, etc.) copies the playlist WITH THE ASSOCIATED MP3 FILE. That makes sense- it has to, because a playlist REFERENCES a file, and the playlist on the ipod doesn't know that, say, your Coldplay song in the playlist is actually linking to C:\MP3\Coldplay.mp3... it's linking to a song ON THE IPOD. Thus it copies the ipod song as well as the playlist, so the link will work.

I didn't want that. I already had the song. What makes matters worse, is instead of copying the file with the original name, it copies it in the same format that it's on the iPod, which is some cryptic name, such as: AV27SJE.mp3. The reason, i realized, that they do that, is that's the name of the mp3 that's stored on the ipod. Apple didn't want to retain the original name (i.e. Coldplay.mp3) because that would make pirating MP3s a lot easier. It's a good theory, but it just makes things a little difficult when trying to restore data, like in my case.

So what i had to do, and this video explains, is restore the playlist using a 3rd party application. Once in (it's linking to the right songs, but the wrong names - it's copied all the cryptic-named songs to my itunes folder) i export the playlist, edit it in excel and notepad to show the correct LOCATION of the song (i build the path to the file (for instance C:\MP3\coldplay.mp3) based on the file name).

NOTE: This will only work if you have some sort of naming convention for your mp3s. I did... i always made sure the mp3s were ARTIST - TITLE. Thus i could re-arrange columns in Excel, and using some find/replace action, could get the correct location. If every one of your songs is different in file-name structure, this won't work.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• ipod
• itunes
• restore
• playlist
• not
• song
• file

[eezeedoesit]

you should try this with 664,000 trax ruffly on a 2TB external HD.... nightmare

[rhomb81]

thank you so much it works, ive been looking for this information for years...

I had a 689 playlist, 638 imported thats a great start instead of doing it one at a time.

thank you, thank you, thank you

[shah0786]

blad chill out with the bloody camera man! ur giving me a boom bastic headache

[XxXxdyedsoulxXxX]

LAWL i have same comp, dell precision M6300?????

[Helenhabbit]

I dont understand but thats what I need to do : (

[TGKKiddKidd]

My music list under playlist on my itunes dissapered so i cant drag music on my ipod. U kno how to make it appear again?