Easily back up and restore your iPod to Mac Catalina

iTunes is gone but there are a few simple steps to backing up and restoring an iPod to MacOS Catalina without having to purchase software. You can complete the following steps by using tools that are included for free on your Mac.

In my case I had to back up a really old 1st generation iPod Nano that hadn’t been backed up in years, and restore the files to a 2015, 7th Generation Nano. NOTE: I haven’t tried the steps below with the latest generation iPods (post-7th Gen) or iPhone/iPad.

Also, if you tried to use old command line tricks for running your backups like I did, those won’t work out-of-the-box anymore because the latest MacOS updates include System Integrity Protection (SIP). You can disable SIP, but there’s an easier way! Read on…

Before you get started make sure your Mac is updated to the latest version.

Step 1: Connect iPod to your Mac

Make sure the iPod is on and when you connect it to the Mac by USB cable. Within a few seconds you should see two listings appear in the Finder’s sidebar with the name of your iPod under Locations. If the listings don’t appear the most likely culprit is a bad cable, so you’ll need to try another one. 

One of the listings provides an overview of iPod management options, the other listing will let you browse the iPod’s filesystem. In the management listing under the General section I chose to manually manage my music, movies and TV shows. This is important if you don’t want the iPod to automatically sync as soon as you connect it to the Mac.

Step 2: View hidden directories on the iPod

In Finder using the listing that lets you browse your iPod’s filesystem, if you don’t see the iPod_Control directory then you’ll need to unhide file folders. From your keyboard do command + shift + . (that last item is a period on your keyboard) and now you should be able to see all hidden directories including iPod_Control.

Step 3: Copy files from iPod to Mac

Now open another Finder window and create a new directory such as /Documents/iPod_music/

Copy the iPod_Control/Music/ sub-directory from the original Finder window to the new one. Depending on how many music files you have this could take a while.

Step 4: Sync the Music App

Open Music.app on your Mac. You should see your iPod listed under devices. If not then go back to Step 2.

In the top menu bar go to File > Import and select the directory that has your newly copied music files and then press the “open” button. This should import the files so that they are now managed by the Music app.

Step 5: Restore existing iPod or update new iPod

Once the file import in Step 4 is complete, then you can right click on your device name in the Music app and select sync. When the sync is complete, right click on the device name and choose eject. Once the device has finished ejecting you should now be able to browse and play your files!

Extra Credit

For extra credit, in Finder select the listing that lets you manage the iPod settings run Check for Update. I was surprised there was indeed an update for my Nano.

The one thing that Android needs the most

Android has really missed the boat on one thing that iTunes and iCloud do really well. That is the Android eco-system doesn’t have a built-in, seamless solution for restoring a device from scratch.

There is no universal way to backup and restore Android’s home screen and your phone’s application organization, your application data and settings, photos, videos, messages, ringtones, miscellaneous phone settings, etc.

What this means is it’s a pain and potentially time consuming to rebuild your phone or tablet every time you buy a new Android, your current phone dies because you dropped it, or if you have to switch over to a replacement. The issue is further compounded by the fact that some apps prevent you from saving them to an SDCard. I’m not sure if this is intentional or simply an oversight by the developer when they configured the application for uploading to Google Play.

Third party apps have jumped in to try and fill the void. Many take a really good stab at addressing the issue, but the solutions and their features can be a hodge-podge. Some, such as Titanium Backup, require you root your phone which many people are wary of because it voids any warranties. Others, such as App Backup & Restore, aren’t able to back up the application data and that means all your settings are lost.

I would trade a well-done backup and restore functionality from Android for any new gimmicky feature or pseudo-incremental improvement. Universal back up and restore would be a huge bonus for the entire Android community.

Hard drive failure doesn’t have to ruin your day

I’m amazed by how many developers don’t image or clone their machines. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said to me “oh man, I wasted almost an entire day rebuilding my system”. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again: it doesn’t have to be that way!

Simply backing up the file system on your machine helps when you need to restore various files. But…if your hard drive fails you still have to reinstall all software and reconfigure everything. And, I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g: IDE’s, browsers, fiddler, plugins, and any application or operating system updates. This can be very time consuming and a real time waster.

An image or clone is a complete snapshot of your entire system at a point in time. Here’s an online article that explains what this means. I recommend using a combination of daily file backups and system snapshots. Rebuilding your system is as simple as copying over the image/clone/snapshot onto a new hard drive, and then reloading the latest file system backup. On my current machine that takes about 45 minutes or so to completely restore my system. So, the last time my hard drive failed, I plugged in the new drive then went and got a cup of coffee. The imaging software does all the hard work of rebuilding my system back to nearly the exact state it was in peviously.

On my physical machines I typically use Acronis. But, there are other choices out there, such as Ghost. On my Virtual Machines I simply create a clone once every week or two, or more often if I load a major operating system update.

Hard drives do fail. So, don’t let a simple failure ruin your productivity.