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iPod Manually manage music on iPod Classic with Big Sur

UtherRex

UtherRex

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 26, 2021
2
1
I've upgraded my Mac and now have a new M1 running Big Sur, and now I've realised that iTunes has been removed.

I also have an old iPod Classic. On my old Mac I would manually manage the music, I'd copy something into iTunes, move it to the iPod and then the iTunes version might well get deleted. I would also edit the properties of tracks on my iPod to make sure that things like albums and tracks were grouped correctly.

All of that seems either impossible or harder with Apple Music on Big Sur.

Having dug around I believe that I can get all my music into Apple Music on my Mac and then sync it through playlists to the iPod. But I'm not sure I want all of my music filling up my Mac and I'm not sure if the iPod will take it's disc being thrashed about with a full sync (it's old and has misbehaved before).

Is there another piece of software that I can use to just manage the music on my iPod Classic? I've tried a few but nothing seems to quite work. I want to be able to edit the properties and delete tracks.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
 
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I use iTunes on my windows PC as my 'master' library, but I then use Mediamonkey to sync it to other devices, including my android phone. I believe it's capable of talking to iPods too if I'm not mistaken.
 
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I'm a little desperate here. Forget that iTunes was the worst app anyone ever wrote and that it got worse with every single iteration. Not to be too paranoid, but it seems Apple's motivation to split iTunes into 3 apps is based only on them trying to urge us to subscribe to Apple Music, or some video subscription service, or some as-yet-to-come podcast service. Or all 3. Every single thing these apps do is push you toward this, and away from every other option, options that used to be available in iTunes.

Sorry, Tim—Not gonna happen. Screw Apple Music. And the horse it rode in on.

The music app is completely inscrutable unless you subscribe to Apple Music and pretend you don't own licenses to audio you paid dearly for to them since 2003, or have no music you've added from other sources. Every single thing seems designed to get us to 'not worry our pretty little heads about that' and just cave in and subscribe.

I mean, I even suspect they are calling it the 'Music' app just to get it confused with Apple Music. So that people will conflate the two, and maybe cave in. At this point, neither seems viable to me.

My iPod seems to just sit and churn. I can drag files to it in the finder, but that is hardly ideal, since I can't manage playlists that way. And Professor Google seems to have no idea how to circumvent these conditions, either.

At this point it would not surprise me if Apple said 'iPod? What's an iPod? We never sold millions of those. I have no idea what you're even talking about? Buy our new iPhone, instead. Gimme your money.'

Steve is spinning in his grave.

So at the risk of never hearing an answer, my question is

'How do I get the music app to play nice with my iPod? How do I manage playlists and all the metadata there?

Hopefully, the people on this forum are much smarter than the people in Cupertino, who all seem to be impaired by eating way too much HFCS their entire lives.

Or, preferably, is there non-Apple software that can accomplish this?
 
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I have the same problem. Old ipod touch, no playlists show up and even impossible to play music from iTunes' interface...
 
napabar said:
iPods are managed through the Finder now, not the new Music app.
Click to expand...
iPod Touch only; iPod Classic support has been discontinued, which is the topic of this thread.

I tried using Retroactive but there is a conflict of which application is in control of the iPod Classic: iTunes says another app has control, and sometimes the Finder says another app has control. Either way, I can't manage or sync anything with my iPod Classic via Retroactive.

I just took a round trip flight about 8 hours total one way (16 hours total), with 1.5 hour layover, and my iPod Classic's upgraded battery still has 95% remaining. Can't beat that with using Music on my iPhone 12 Pro without having to plug it into power.

I have a huge music library and like to refer back to music I loved listening too on my trip, as well as culling music I didn't like, but now that I can't sync my Classic to my Big Sur music library, I'm stuck having to sync to my secondary CMP running Mojave and identify music I've listened to then manually manage the Big Sur library.

I don't believe Apple should have left the Classic to die when its perfectly usable tech. Instead it's now left to be discarded and fill up landfills with toxic materials, with some maybe being recycled.
 
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Auggie said:
iPod Touch only; iPod Classic support has been discontinued, which is the topic of this thread.

I tried using Retroactive but there is a conflict of which application is in control of the iPod Classic: iTunes says another app has control, and sometimes the Finder says another app has control. Either way, I can't manage or sync anything with my iPod Classic via Retroactive.

I just took a round trip flight about 8 hours total one way (16 hours total), with 1.5 hour layover, and my iPod Classic's upgraded battery still has 95% remaining. Can't beat that with using Music on my iPhone 12 Pro without having to plug it into power.

I have a huge music library and like to refer back to music I loved listening too on my trip, as well as culling music I didn't like, but now that I can't sync my Classic to my Big Sur music library, I'm stuck having to sync to my secondary CMP running Mojave and identify music I've listened to then manually manage the Big Sur library.

I don't believe Apple should have left the Classic to die when its perfectly usable tech. Instead it's now left to be discarded and fill up landfills with toxic materials, with some maybe being recycled.
Click to expand...
Not true. I've managed iPod Photo (4th gen with color screen) and the 7th gen Nano with Big Sur and Monterey.
 
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I would also love to be able to manage my iPod classic playlists again. I keep an old Mac running an old OS just to keep the iPod useable, but that obviously can't go on forever. The finder lets me add files, but I want to create and edit playlists and make smart playlists, and I can't find an app for that.
 
Auggie said:
iPod Touch only; iPod Classic support has been discontinued, which is the topic of this thread.

I tried using Retroactive but there is a conflict of which application is in control of the iPod Classic: iTunes says another app has control, and sometimes the Finder says another app has control. Either way, I can't manage or sync anything with my iPod Classic via Retroactive.

I just took a round trip flight about 8 hours total one way (16 hours total), with 1.5 hour layover, and my iPod Classic's upgraded battery still has 95% remaining. Can't beat that with using Music on my iPhone 12 Pro without having to plug it into power.

I have a huge music library and like to refer back to music I loved listening too on my trip, as well as culling music I didn't like, but now that I can't sync my Classic to my Big Sur music library, I'm stuck having to sync to my secondary CMP running Mojave and identify music I've listened to then manually manage the Big Sur library.

I don't believe Apple should have left the Classic to die when its perfectly usable tech. Instead it's now left to be discarded and fill up landfills with toxic materials, with some maybe being recycled.
Click to expand...
Have they discontinued Classic support on the windows version of iTunes do you know?
 
rgould said:
I keep an old Mac running an old OS just to keep the iPod useable, but that obviously can't go on forever. The finder lets me add files, but I want to create and edit playlists and make smart playlists, and I can't find an app for that.
Click to expand...

Here is my solution. First, make your playlists in Apple Music. It works similarly to iTunes, but better. I do find Apple Music vastly superior to iTunes, it's less buggy.

After you have your playlists, plug your iPod into your iMac/Macbook. Use the finder to "sync" the playlist onto your iPod. Note: you may see two "ipods" in the Finder, depending on your Finder configuration. You want the one that looks like an image of an iPod, and the main finder menus are "General," "Music," "Podcasts," and "Audiobooks." From this Finder menu, you can swap playlists in and out of your iPods.

For example, you'll pick the "Music" heading, click on "Sync music onto IPOD," then be sure to use radio button "Selected artists, albums, genres, and playlists." Then the next submenu beneath that, pick "Playlists," and Finder definitely will recognize your current Apple Music playlists you created in the Apple Music app. It works.

I would test the functionality on every iPod you have. I just went through this with the iPod Shuffle, and it is working in Monterey 12.0.1. And it's working better than it did in Catalina, of that I am certain.
 
those people having issues are using iPod Classic…
not iPod touch, not iPod nano or anything else. Those iPods that shipped with a hard drive, that can still play FLAC files natively, or m4a Apple lossless for that matter.
Apple May have already removed the support for THAT iPod. I don’t have one so I have no idea but it probably is the case here.
 
Auggie said:
I tried using Retroactive but there is a conflict of which application is in control of the iPod Classic: iTunes says another app has control, and sometimes the Finder says another app has control. Either way, I can't manage or sync anything with my iPod Classic via Retroactive.
Click to expand...
Have you tried the workaround provided by the developer:
https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive
If you connect an Apple device to your Mac, and either see nothing in iTunes, or "The device is in use by another user on this computer":

  • Disconnect the device from your Mac, but keep iTunes open.
  • Click on the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) on the menu bar.
  • Type "Terminal" and press return to open the Terminal app.
  • Enter killall AMPDevicesAgent in the Terminal window, and press return.
  • Connect the Apple device back to your Mac.
Click to expand...
I have no problems with Big Sur (Intel), Retroactive and my iPod Classic 5G and 7G (btw. upgraded to 512 GB Flash via microSD and a larger battery)
https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-quad/
 
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I've been meaning to create a thread regarding this exact topic for a couple of months now, but I've always got busy with something else. Thank you @arw for your post so this thread surfaced in the "New posts" section. When I get a chance I will try what you mentioned from the developer of Retroactive.
 
I tried everything to get my iPod Classic working with Big Sur and Finder to no avail. In the end I copied my iTunes library to my Mac Pro running Monterey. Once I pointed Music to the iTunes library, had Music import the library, and spent an hour or so fixing album cover artwork; Finder successfully found my music collection and synced it to my iPod! Everything works as well as it did with Mojave and iTunes. Once again I am enjoying all my music (imported CDs as well as music purchased in iTunes). The album cover artwork successfully shows on the iPod as well. I am very happy!
 
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UtherRex said:
I've upgraded my Mac and now have a new M1 running Big Sur, and now I've realised that iTunes has been removed.

I also have an old iPod Classic. On my old Mac I would manually manage the music, I'd copy something into iTunes, move it to the iPod and then the iTunes version might well get deleted. I would also edit the properties of tracks on my iPod to make sure that things like albums and tracks were grouped correctly.

All of that seems either impossible or harder with Apple Music on Big Sur.

Having dug around I believe that I can get all my music into Apple Music on my Mac and then sync it through playlists to the iPod. But I'm not sure I want all of my music filling up my Mac and I'm not sure if the iPod will take it's disc being thrashed about with a full sync (it's old and has misbehaved before).

Is there another piece of software that I can use to just manage the music on my iPod Classic? I've tried a few but nothing seems to quite work. I want to be able to edit the properties and delete tracks.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
Click to expand...
Just found this after I couldn't synch my iPod classic of 160Gb and... I also had iMazing and that's the answer, you see how you could manage playlists! :) - ops... but it cannot write on it :( so looking for something else, found Anytrans
 
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