Transfer music from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod to your Mac or PC computer

If you have an iOS device - iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - or an older iPod, such as a classic, nano, or shuffle, you probably use iTunes to sync music to the device. But there may be times when you need to get it back. You're computer may have crashed, or gotten stolen, and you may not have a backup. Or somehow you accidentally deleted a song or an album from your iTunes library, but it's still on your device.

In this case, you'll want to get your music off your iPod or iOS device to your Mac or PC, but Apple doesn't give you any way to do this. Fortunately, iMazing can help.

With iMazing, you can copy music files from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to your computer, retaining all their metadata: each track's name, artwork, and even ratings and play counts.

Here is how to transfer music from your iPhone (or iPad, or iPod) to a computer:

1. Launch iMazing and connect your device to your Mac or PC.
2. Select your device in the sidebar, then select "Music".
3. Select the music you want to export and click "Export to Folder".
4. Select a location and customize your export.
5. Transfer your Music.

Screencast: How to recover music from an old iPod?

Before you begin

Download and install iMazing on your Mac or PC computer

In-Depth Tutorial

1. Launch iMazing on your computer and connect your device.

Download and install iMazing. Launch the app, and connect your device to your Mac or PC.

2. Select your device in the iMazing's sidebar, then select "Music".

iMazing loads your device's music and playlist(s).

3. Select the music you want to export.

This could be your entire library; in which case just click "Music" in the Library list. Or it could be a playlist; select it in the Playlists list. Or it could be an album or song; click the Music library and find it in the list, or use the Search field to narrow down your selection.

In the toolbar at the bottom of the window, click Export to Folder,

then click Next, and the Music Export Wizard opens.

4. Select a location and customize your export.

iMazing asks where you want the files placed, and how they should be organized. Unless you're only copying a few tracks, it's a good idea to organize them in folders. By default, this organization is by artist, then album. So each artist has a folder with their name; inside these folders, iMazing places folders with the names of their albums; and the files are placed inside these album folders. Click Next

5. Transfer your Music.

iMazing starts transferring the music. Depending on how many files you're copying, this may take a while.

💡 Tips: You can also drag files from your device's Music section to your computer to export them.

Going further

If you tell the Music Export Wizard to organize your files in folders, they can be easier to sift through. If you check both Artist and Album, iMazing stores files in the following folder structure:

Artist 1
  Album 1
    Track 01
    Track 02
    ….
  Album 2
    Track 01
Artist 2
….

If you check Only Show Transferable Media, just above the toolbar, iMazing only shows those files it can copy. If you uncheck this option, any files that iMazing cannot transfer display greyed out.

There are two reasons why iMazing may not be able to copy files:

• iCloud Music tracks that aren't downloaded cannot be copied, because they are not on your device. If you do want to export music that's in your iCloud Music Library, download it first to your device.
• Apple Music tracks are a special kind of file that cannot be copied to a computer or to another device.