Backing Up Your IPod Music Library

If you're like me, your IPOD and or iTunes collection of music can become your life. All of your favorite songs in one spot, sometimes hundreds or thousands of MP3's to keep track of. And, if you're like me you become obssessed with making sure that music stays safe. I have had the misfortune of using my IPOD on a MAC then plugging it into a PC, and losing all contents on the iPOD by clicking the wrong "pop-up" choice. But there are some good ways to backup your collection, whether you use a Macintosh or PC.

Here's how to keep your iPOD/iTunes music alive:

1 - Use a program to copy songs off your ipod.
Try "CopyPod" if you have a PC, and "Senuti" if you are a MAC user. These are 2 programs which will output the songs off your ipod to your computer. Copypod is free to try for 14 days, then requires you buy to register. It will detect an IPOD plugged into your computer and list out all songs, then allowing you to choose all the songs, certain playlist, search by artist. From there you can ask CopyPod to back up all the songs off your iPOD to a folder on your computer. It also allows you to import all songs off your iPOD into your itunes library if you'd prefer.

Senuti is the MAC user's alternative. It has a less organized output of the music off an IPOD but for free you cant complain much. Both of these programs are great for pulling the songs off your iPOD and storing them in a folder for backup to a hard drive, CD-R or DVD-R.