For want of a sync, the party was lost.

February 25, 2009 3:24 PM

Is there any way to put music on an iPod touch without syncing it with itunes or buying from the WiFi store?

I have some mp3s. I have my iPod Touch. I even have the docking cable. What I don't have is the machine it syncs to.

I want to add some mp3s from a different machine to my iPod touch without losing what's on there already. I've already tried e-mailing myself an mp3 and then downloading it out of gmail, but it said the attachment was too large and couldn't be opened. Any ideas?

posted by Oktober to computers & internet (8 answers total)

One of these programs should do the trick:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10-alternatives-to-itunes-for-managing-your-ipod/

The problem with dragging mp3s over to the iPod in hard disk mode is that it doesn't rebuild the iTunes database. These programs allow you to do that.
posted by chrisamiller at 3:36 PM on February 25, 2009

Here's what your looking for - I find this really annoying too (that you can't sync to multiple computers like you could but activating manual sync on the ipod) - but I haven't tried it yet.

Let me know if you try it and/or if it succeeds. Good Luck.
posted by jourman2 at 3:36 PM on February 25, 2009

I'm pretty sure I've done this before with a friend's iTouch. I connected it to my iMac, opened iTunes and dragged a few songs over the iPod icon in the left window. I manually control my music library on (my own) iPod, so there is no need to sync. I'm not sure what the settings on her iPod were though.
posted by ddaavviidd at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2009

You don't have to overwrite everything when sync'ing with iTunes. When you plug it into the temporary machine, tell it you don't want it to manage the new device, then just manually drag files from the itunes music pane, to the device in iTunes. I use 3 different iTunes installs with my touch, no problems.
posted by nomisxid at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2009 [2 favorites]

chrisamiller: The problem there is that the iPod Touch and iPhone don't work as external hard drives.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:25 PM on February 25, 2009

I nth what nomisxid said, so long as the itunes program on the computer you want to use is set to disable automatic syncing, you can just drag and drop.
posted by lizbunny at 4:40 PM on February 25, 2009

What everybody else said: plug it in, tell iTunes not to sync and let you manage music manually, then drag the files you want from iTunes or the Finder into the music library of the iPod on the left-hand side of iTunes.
posted by nowonmai at 7:44 PM on February 25, 2009

nthing the "Manually Manage Music" option in iTunes.
posted by Brettus at 6:52 AM on February 26, 2009