For coping EVERYTHING from my Ipod, that would work, but not for copy a selection of albums. I am trying to copy a select few albums and songs to my computer using MM so I have no idea what folder they are in on my Ipod. As stated in the thread above, the filenames get truncated if using the newest generation Ipod. All my Depeche Mode songs have the same file name when copied over - Dep6. You cannot copy duplicate filenames over in Windows so it only copies one song from the album. I know you can set up Media Monkey to copy files to the Ipod using a different naming method (Song Name instead of Artist), but it still truncates the filename. This will get me a bit further, but there is still a chance that there will be duplicates. So a good solution around this would be to add a “copy” option on the auto-organize dialog. Hope all this makes sense.

dmode101 wrote:I’m glad I found this thread. I also have the same request. Basically I want to COPY music from my Ipod to a location on my computer and have it format the file names by a mask driven off the tags. The Auto-Organize Files feature does exactly this, but it MOVES the files from the ipod. If you could add a “copy” option to this dialog, this would give users this option. Winamp already has this option. They have an option – Copy to Local Media, which does exactly this…works perfect!

Can you not just select all the files on the pod and copy them to HD. Then, auto-organize - the tag info would still be there and the files would still be on the pod.

I’m glad I found this thread. I also have the same request. Basically I want to COPY music from my Ipod to a location on my computer and have it format the file names by a mask driven off the tags. The Auto-Organize Files feature does exactly this, but it MOVES the files from the ipod. If you could add a “copy” option to this dialog, this would give users this option. Winamp already has this option. They have an option – Copy to Local Media, which does exactly this…works perfect!

rusty wrote:shanonline,

Jiri figured out what's probably happening to you. Instead of synching your tracks you might be Sending them to a drive. In mediamonkey, these two operations are VERY different:

-Sync (Autosync or Sync Selected): syncs Tracks to a device as configured in the device settings dialog and updates the device DB if appropriate. Note that when you sync to an iPod, the filenames are modified to 4 characters (as iTunes does), though you have the option of changing the mask to use the first 4 characters of the Track instead of the first four characters of the Album Artist.
-Send to <drive letter>: copies tracks exactly as explorer would, without modifying them.

Hope this clariifes...

-Rusty

Yes it does help very much.. I think what I need to do is change the mask of how the tracks get labeled. Instead of the artist, the actual track name will be used.. that will probably solve my issue for the most part.. thank you

shanonline,

Jiri figured out what's probably happening to you. Instead of synching your tracks you might be Sending them to a drive. In mediamonkey, these two operations are VERY different:

-Sync (Autosync or Sync Selected): syncs Tracks to a device as configured in the device settings dialog and updates the device DB if appropriate. Note that when you sync to an iPod, the filenames are modified to 4 characters (as iTunes does), though you have the option of changing the mask to use the first 4 characters of the Track instead of the first four characters of the Album Artist.
-Send to <drive letter>: copies tracks exactly as explorer would, without modifying them.

Hope this clariifes...

-Rusty

@shanline
If I understand you correctly you would like to have some sort of dialog like when you use Auto-Organize when you select Destination for Copy To...?

rusty wrote:If you just want to copy iPod contents to the PC, best thing to do is install MM on the target PC, and then browse the iPod from within MM, select the tracks you want to copy, and paste them to a new location.

That gives you _complete_ visibility into the contents of the iPod.

Note also, you can change the default mask that is used when syncing to the iPod from <Artist>-<Title> to <Title>, which might help if you want to browse the iPod in Explorer.

-Rusty

That's what I'm referring to. I've done that.. highlight selected media on MM 3.0.. then right click, send to (copy), location...

problem is that MM attempts to copy all those songs to ONE folder. That isn't possible to do since all the songs are now named the SAME since that's how MM copies them TO the ipod (the non-unique truncated name).

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong then?

If you just want to copy iPod contents to the PC, best thing to do is install MM on the target PC, and then browse the iPod from within MM, select the tracks you want to copy, and paste them to a new location.

That gives you _complete_ visibility into the contents of the iPod.

Note also, you can change the default mask that is used when syncing to the iPod from <Artist>-<Title> to <Title>, which might help if you want to browse the iPod in Explorer.

-Rusty

rusty wrote:The reason the filenames are truncated on the iPod is because they _need_ to be in order to be fully compatible with the latest versions of iPod firmware. If you have an older iPod, you can disable the iPod compatibility settings and safely use a mask that gives you more informative filenames.

You can do this via the device configuration tab on the synchronization settings panel.

-Rusty

I have an iPod Classic 160.. so no go on disabling compatbility options.. tried that.

however, I understand that MM needs to truncate the songs.. but why couldn't it truncate them into unique names like iTunes does? Truncating the songs to non-unique names effectively takes away the ability to copy FROM the ipod to a PC.

The reason the filenames are truncated on the iPod is because they _need_ to be in order to be fully compatible with the latest versions of iPod firmware. If you have an older iPod, you can disable the iPod compatibility settings and safely use a mask that gives you more informative filenames.

You can do this via the device configuration tab on the synchronization settings panel.

-Rusty

rusty wrote:The auto-organize feature isn't designed to be used on a portable device. I suppose the bug is that the UI doesn't make this more obvious.

-Rusty

the only reason I was using it on the ipod itself is to try to change the names of the files so that they are unique, so I can copy them to a computer.

Right now, when you add files to the ipod via MM, it names/truncates based on album artist.

IE: all songs by Metallica become META.MP3. While this works as long as it's put into iPod style folder (F01, F02, F03, etc.), this becomes a significant problem if you try to copy them to a local computer from the ipod.

when you load an album into an iPod from itunes, it renames the mp3's to at least a unique 4-letter filename.

Hopefully, they'll fix this issue before the software goes live.

The auto-organize feature isn't designed to be used on a portable device. I suppose the bug is that the UI doesn't make this more obvious.

-Rusty

Update:

Loaded album from MM 3.0 to ipod. still had issue with individual tracks having a non-unique name, but in unique folders (IE: all songs on the album are truncated to one name, but put in different folders on ipod. as stated before, this will cause issues if you wish to copy from the iPod to the PC).

I attempted to use "auto-Arrange" to change the file names to unique names (IE: Artist - Album - Title). While this worked, it did not delete the old names. iTunes and the iPod itself still had the old entries in the database, but those tracks weren't playable of course. The newly renamed tracks also showed up, so to the iPod and iTunes, it looked as though there were duplicate tracks.

The renamed tracks were playable via iTunes. I just deleted the old names (duplicates).

slight update to issue:

upon further investigation, I've realized that the files are indeed being moved from the ipod. However, the database on the ipod doesn't seem to be reflected. It still shows the album art/songs/artists.. etc. just when you try to play the file, it does nothing.. the track position slider doesn't move at all.

Also, when you go to the ipod tree in MM, it still shows the tracks being there as well.

Device: iPod Classic 160GB

OS: Windows XP SP2 (amd x64 3.5/2GB RAM/GeForce 7900GT's)

Issue:

When using the "auto organize" feature directly on the iPod, instead of moving the mp3's to the directory I specified (C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Music), it instead makes a copy on the ipod itself. The path that shows up in the media monkey program is X:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Music. (I've assigned X:\ as my ipod drive letter)

Note that that path X:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Music doesn't actually exist if I use explorer to browse my ipod.

The reason i was testing the auto-organize feature in this manner is because if you just use the copy feature, it will dump all the raw mp3's into one directory. You will then have to use the "auto-organize" feature seperately to file them into artist\album folders.

However, if you upload your music from MM to the ipod and use the iTunes naming convention, then the mp3's are all named the same (truncated or something), but put into seperate directories on the iPod_Control\Music folders..

This causes a problem when copying from the ipod to PC in this manner as you get issues with all the files being named the same. The PC will ask if you wish to overwrite the file.

Not sure if there is a configuration option to tweak this or not.

As far as the function suggestion, why not have auto-organize be able to COPY from the ipod to the PC as well as move? Should it not be as simple as adding a radio button for the option to copy instead of move?

This would certainly be very handy as I would love to be able to have all the benefits of the "auto-Arrange" feature copy from the ipod and put it all into the Artist\Album file convention that I have chosen.

As of now, I have to copy the raw files from the ipod into a common directory, and then clean them up with "auto-Arrange" later. Making this an option for being able to do it "on the fly" would be awesome!