Jonah gets your songs back out of an old iPod, and puts new ones on, without iTunes. It's free, and the source is on GitHub.
Old iPods hide your music under random file names, so you can't just copy it off in Finder. Jonah reads the iPod's own song list, so you see your library as it was.
What it does
- Exports the songs you tick into tidy
Artist / Albumfolders - Plays songs straight off the iPod
- Adds songs by drag and drop, converting formats the iPod can't play
- Deletes songs, and finds duplicates
- Edits playlists
It backs up the iPod's song list before every change.
Which iPods
| iPod | Export and play | Add, delete, playlists |
|---|---|---|
| 1st–5th generation (scroll wheel, touch wheel, click wheel, video) | ✓ | ✓ |
| mini, nano 1st and 2nd generation | ✓ | ✓ (should work, untested) |
| classic (6th/7th generation), nano 3rd generation and later | ✓ if iTunesDB is present | ✗ signed database |
| shuffle | ✓ (from the files' own tags) | ✗ |
| touch, iPhone | ✗ no disk mode | ✗ |
Install
Jonah needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer.
Build it yourself (recommended)
Paste this into Terminal:
git clone https://github.com/socialspacedev/jonah.git
cd jonah
./install.sh
It needs the Xcode Command Line Tools; the script tells you how to get them if they're missing. Built this way, Jonah opens without any warnings.
Download the app
Get the zip from the latest release, unzip it and drag Jonah to Applications.
It isn't notarised by Apple, so macOS refuses it the first time. Open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway next to Jonah. You only need to do this once.
Give it a crack
If you've got an old iPod with music on it you can't get at, give it a crack. It comes with no guarantees, so export what matters before deleting anything.
Found a problem? Add it to Issues on GitHub.