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Disk Drill 3

Recover Lost iPod
Data and Music

If you need to recover iPod data because you've lost music or videos, you've come to the right place. With Disk Drill, iPod data recovery for the Mac is a breeze. Whether your iPod won't mount, or you've overwritten files by mistake, Disk Drill can help for iOS-based iPod Touch and classic iPods as well.

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It's easy to forget that every man-made device – even one as nifty as the Apple iPod – has its faults. One day it's working fine. The next, it won't boot up without a full system restore. Or perhaps a friend mistakenly synchronizes your iPod with his computer. A mere two clicks of the mouse is all it takes to lose your precious music and settings.

Making regular back-ups is essential (so you are told) but you didn't make them, and now you're here. Luckily it's not as hopeless as it might seem. Using Disk Drill, iPod data recovery software for Mac OS X, it's remarkably easy to recover songs and videos that have been recently deleted. Read on for a quick overview. For detailed tutorials, see How to Install Disk Drill and How to Recover Lost Files with Disk Drill Basic in the CleverFiles Knowledgebase.

P.S. IMPORTANT: Starting with Disk Drill 3, iOS-enabled iPod Touch devices are also supported for data recovery. Though the recovery process is different for touch and classic non-iOS iPods, Disk Drill attempts to ensure the highest recovery rate possible. So, at this time you can recover iPod data from the iPod Touch, Classic, Nano, Shuffle and Mini.

#1 Download and Install Disk Drill

Get the latest free release of Disk Drill Basic and install it on your Mac OS X (or macOS) computer. Simply drag the application from the downloaded DMG to your Applications folder. Optionally, drag the Disk Drill icon to your Dock as well for easy access. Then iPod data recovery on your Mac will be ready to start.

1Download Disk Drill
2Install our iPhone recovery app
3Get ready to recover

#2 Select Your iPod in the Drive Overview

Connect your iPod to your computer. Upon launching Disk Drill, you'll be presented with a list of all detected storage media. Your iPod should be automatically recognized. Click on the disk name of your iPod.

If you are planning the recovery from your iPod Classic, be sure that you have "Manually manage music and videos" checked in iTunes. For iPod Touch, find it in "iOS devices (USB, Wi-Fi)" group.

#3 Scan iPod to Recover Deleted Files

For iPod data recovery, click the Recover button next to your iPod disk name. A progress bar will be shown while Disk Drill scavenges your iPod for any salvageable files. Remember that the chances of a full recovery decrease over time and with active use of your iPod, so recover your deleted files as quickly as possible. Disk Drill treats your iPod as a disk for older models, and it will enable iOS data recovery for the newer iPod Touch. This will affect the way the recoverable data is presented.

#4 iPod_Control... what?

After scanning your iPod, Disk Drill will show you a list of files that can be recovered. Classic iPods use a slightly peculiar data structure, but your coveted files are easy to find if you know where to look. For preference files and metadata, you generally have to look in iPod_Control > iTunes > iTunes Library.itlp, although the exact folder path may differ slightly depending on your iPod model.

How to recover SD card on Mac OS X

Scanning iPod Touch usually brings up a number of categorized files like Photos, Messages, Notes, etc. That's explained by the fact that Disk Drill 3+ reads your iPod directly as an iOS device, running best-in-breed iOS data recovery methods which are different from a regular data recovery that requires mass storage access.

It's easy to protect your data

While you are recovering data from your iPod, it's a good time to give the data safety on your desktop Mac a second thought. We all know it's just a question of when you will have to deal with data recovery, why not protect your most important files and folders today? Disk Drill provides all the required data protection tools you will need: Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery.

#5 Recover Music from the iPod

Yet again, for classic iPods your music will be located in iPod_Control > Music. You can try to recover the entire Music folder, or pick out individual MP3s. Note that your music artwork is stored in a different location, at iPod_Control > Artwork.

#6 Recover Videos from the iPod

For modern iPods, the recoverable videos will be listed in the corresponding folder among other scanning results. Pick the ones you were looking for, or recover all videos from your iPod Touch.

Learn more about the best Mac data recovery software

For classic iPod devices, video files may be stored separately, in iPod_Control > DCIM and various subdirectories. Video files may not be previewed if QuickLook is missing a plugin for the correct codec, but you can always guess the codes your iPod was using and download the needed plugin to preview the videos you are going to recover.

#7 Preview and Complete iPod Recovery

Finally, and thank you for getting this far, click the "eye" icon next to each file name to preview it. You'll need to preview each song or video in its entirety to be sure that it is recoverable. After you've selected the files and folders on your iPod that you wish to restore, click the Recover button. You will be directed to upgrade to Disk Drill PRO in order to recover the iPod data, if you haven't already. Once the upgrade is complete, you can finish the process of iPod data recovery on your Mac.

So what are you waiting for? Download Disk Drill, the best iPod data recovery software, for free today!

How to deep-scan
your storage device for lost data

Deep Scan is technically the least accurate data recovery algorithm, however, it's the only one effective on formatted drives and partitions. Your data may be flattened out in thousands of bits around the whole surface of a hard drive, if your file system's tables are lost, it's only Deep Scan that can reconstruct the binary entities. Disk Drill's Deep Scan knows more than 200 file formats, and adds them with every new release and update.

Learn more about Deep Scan

Effortless iPod music and video recovery