# Transfer music from old iPad?



## Ricgus3 (Aug 20, 2021)

Hi! I have an old iPad I used for practice and music studies over the years. Now I want to transfer my music I have on the iPad (not bought, my own collection of folk and jazz). Anyone know how to do this? I downloaded iTunes onto my pc but it only asks me to synchronise and warns me all my content on the iPad will be removed.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 20, 2021)

This music resides in iTunes?


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## Ricgus3 (Aug 20, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> This music resides in iTunes?


Don’t really know. I imported it locally from my pc in like 2012. Currently the app is called “Music” in iOS. I can find no iTunes on the iPad.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 20, 2021)

Gotcha. So it is in some database rather than stored in the device’s rather rudimentary file system…


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## doctoremmet (Aug 20, 2021)

I think you need an iTunes Match sub these days to be able to sync these back into an iTunes instance on a regular Mac or PC. I’ve had to resort to that route a couple of years ago when I wanted to part ways with Apple Music and wanted to “extract” a lot of my own “matched” albums I had on there. No idea what the current best practice is. Any Apple techies out there?


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## Rob (Aug 20, 2021)

I remember an app called "iMazing" that I used to transfer files from my iPad2 to PC, you could try it, although in trial mode it only allows for a limited number of files to be transferred...


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## jcrosby (Aug 20, 2021)

Ricgus3 said:


> Hi! I have an old iPad I used for practice and music studies over the years. Now I want to transfer my music I have on the iPad (not bought, my own collection of folk and jazz). Anyone know how to do this? I downloaded iTunes onto my pc but it only asks me to synchronise and warns me all my content on the iPad will be removed.


If you can get access to a mac through someone you know you can get the files off using disk mode if they're on 10.15 or later. I just yanked all of my audio files off of an ancient 2008 ipod using Catalina this week. (Figured there was no chance in hell it would work but I was wrong)... 50+ GB of music, and it was a surprisingly painless process...

All you need to do is show hidden files in macos and the audio will be inside one of the hidden files. (The folder on my ipod was called _ipod control_. Obviously on ipad it's a bit different, but it should be there in a folder with some similar type of naming convention...)


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## Ricgus3 (Aug 20, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> If you can get access to a mac through someone you know you can get the files off using disk mode if they're on 10.15 or later. I just yanked all of my audio files off of an ancient 2008 ipod using Catalina this week. (Figured there was no chance in hell it would work but I was wrong)... 50+ GB of music, and it was a surprisingly painless process...
> 
> All you need to do is show hidden files in macos and the audio will be inside one of the hidden files. (The folder on my ipod was called _ipod control_. Obviously on ipad it's a bit different, but it should be there in a folder with some similar type of naming convention...)


Thanks! Will try this tonight on a friends macbook!


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## Ricgus3 (Aug 20, 2021)

Rob said:


> I remember an app called "iMazing" that I used to transfer files from my iPad2 to PC, you could try it, although in trial mode it only allows for a limited number of files to be transferred...


Ok is it safe to use? Alot of the 3rd party apps i seen seem abit shady


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## Ricgus3 (Aug 20, 2021)

What frustrates me with Apple is this: On my PC i have itunes installed. I have my ipad and iphone connected to my PC at the same time via USB. My iTunes can detect both them and i can browse through them inside itunes. But it seems that i cannot transfer files between the two devices


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## doctoremmet (Aug 20, 2021)

I hear you. Things like this made me finally abandon iTunes / Apple Music and iTunes Match (as great a service it once was)…


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## jbuhler (Aug 20, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> I hear you. Things like this made me finally abandon iTunes / Apple Music and iTunes Match (as great a service it once was)…


Don’t get me started on iTune/Apple Music. It’s never been great and it’s been an increasing PITA with every update. The problem is that as far as I know there’s not a great substitute that gives both iOS and MacOS functionality.


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