Do I need to deauthorize old or unused iPod devices on iTunes?

May 10, 2008 1:05 PM

iPod / iTunes help (Windows)... After Mrs. KokuRyu dumped her iPod nano in the toilet, I bought her a new one. I had an iPod nano myself, but I lost it. Prior to that, I had an iPod shuffle, which I still own and would like to continue to use. ***Before I hook up the new iPod for Mrs. KokuRyu, do I have to deauthorize the old iPods? Is there anything I should do?*** As well, we have music libraries bought on iTunes spread across three computers, and the music is all encoded using Apple's AAC.
posted by KokuRyu to computers & internet (6 answers total)

I don't know why you'd need to "deauthorize" an old iPod in iTunes (actually, I'm not even sure how you would do such a thing). iTunes requires you to authorize computers (max 5, I believe), but not iPods.

So, I guess the short answer is: no.
posted by gwenzel at 1:21 PM on May 10, 2008

Yeah no. Only computers need to be authorized. ipods don't.
posted by special-k at 1:26 PM on May 10, 2008

I would converge the libraries by authorizing all three of your computers to play the purchased songs, then transferring them onto the one with the biggest HD. Because although you can have multiple iPods on one computer, you cannot use an iPod with multiple computers. In order to get all your music on the iPods, it needs to physically be on the one computer.
posted by pedmands at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2008

Okay, then, how do I transfer all purchases onto one computer? Sorry for such a stupid question...
posted by KokuRyu at 1:40 PM on May 10, 2008

There are a couple of ways you could do this. If you have a large libraries that you need to transfer, I'd suggest using an external hard drive to copy the actual files to (found in your iTunes music folder, probably in your default music folder), then importing them into iTunes on the other computer- for this, make sure you have "copy files to my iTunes library" ticked in the importing preferences.
posted by pedmands at 1:45 PM on May 10, 2008

Thanks. I will try it out next weekend (a long weekend here in Canada).
posted by KokuRyu at 9:12 AM on May 12, 2008