Loading an iPod With Music Without iTunes Purchases
This is a fully-fledged written guide explaining how I loaded my old iPods with music when I didn't have any iTunes purchases, and how you can do the same.
If you're better with visual tutorials, scroll to the end of this guide and click the video link.
Prerequisites
- The iPod you want to load with music (obvious)
- An internet connection (how else are you reading this guide anyway)
- A machine running MacOS, or a Windows machine with iTunes installed
- At least half a brain cell
Pre-download
The typical or "old-school" way of loading an iPod with music is to simply purchase the music you want through iTunes, and then sync your iPod. Simple and straightforward. Back when iPods were popular, this was no problem. But nowadays, most people use music streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music, and have built up a library of songs so large it would take a security deposit in order to purchase them all on iTunes for use on an iPod.
That's where using locally stored music files comes in. Since iTunes alows you to add local MP3 or FLAC files to your library and sync them with any connected iPods, we'll use this to our advantage. But first, you need the files themselves. This guide involves using Spotify to make a playlist of songs you want on your iPod, using a Telegram bot to rip the files to your computer, and using iTunes to build a library and sync with your iPod. Let's begin.
First, you need to fire up Spotify, preferrably on the web. Sign in if you have an account; if you don't or just want to use a different account for this than create a new one. You don't need Spotify premuim.
Once you're logged in, create a new playlist to house the songs you want on your iPod. If you have a lot of other playlists in your account, name it something memorable to make it easier to add music to. Now spend a little while filling it with whatever music you may want on your iPod. Take your time, think of everything you can; you want to get it right the first time instead of having to sync your iPod multiple times to get everything you want. This playlist can be as big as you'd like, but do be aware that around 500 songs is where the download time becomes a bit painful.
Move on to the next section once you have your playlist ready.
Download
Now that you have a playlist loaded with all the music you want, it's time to actually do something with it. Like stated earlier, this process involves using a Telegram bot to download the songs.
First, head over to desktop.telegram.org and download the desktop version of Telegram for your respective operating system. Install Telegram, and either sign in or create an account if you don't hve one. It's perfectly safe to use your existing Telegram account if you have one, you don't ned to worry about your account being deleted etc. for following this guide and using the bot.
Once you're signed in, click on the (very obvious) search bar in the upper left, and search for "@deezload2bot" (excluding the quotes of course). The first search result should be a Telegram bot with the name Deezload, and a purple profile image. Click on the bot, and then at the bottom of your screen click the start button. The bot will immediately tell you to join an "updates channel" in order to use it. No worries, just click the "🤖 Join Updates Channel" button in the bots response. At the bottom of your screen, click Join Channel, and then click Mute.
Click the back arrow just to the right of the search bar, then click the 3 lines in the top left. Go to Settings, and then click Advanced. Here, you want to change your download path to make things more convenient. Click on Download Path, and then set your download path to a custom folder; I recommend creating a new folder on your desktop. Save it, close the settings menu, and now you're ready to download the music.
Go back to your Spotify playlist, and copy the URL to it. Return to the telegram bot and paste the copied URL, then click enter. Once it loads, click on "Get All ⬇️", and give the bot some time to process and load the songs.
Once all of the songs are loaded into the chat, go ahead and drag your cursor next to the songs to select them. Telegram will only let you select up to 100 files at a time, so if you have hundreds, you'll need to do this a few times. Once you've selected everything (or everything that it'll let you select in one go-round), right click next to one of the selected chunks of songs, and click Download Selected. Once again, if you're doing this with hundreds of songs, you'll need to repeat the selection and download process a few times.
Once it shows that all of the files have finished downloading, you can confirm by navigating to the folder you set as your download folder and taking a look at the fresh MP3 files. Now you should have a folder full of MP3 files, and now it's time to put them to use.
Building the Library and Syncing
Now that you hve all of the songs you want on your iPod in the form of local files, it's time to do what you've been waiting for.
If you're on Windows, fire up iTunes. If you're on macOS, fire up the Music app. Once opened, navigate to the Songs section in the left hand navigation menu. Now, re-open the folder containing your songs in an Explorer or Finder window. Select all of the songs using ⌘ + A (Ctrl + A on Windows), and drag them over into the iTunes or Music window. The songs should begin to appear in your library; if you have hundreds give it a few moments to load.
Once all of the songs have loaded into your library, go ahead and create any/all playlists you may want on your iPod before proceeding. Once done, go ahead and connect your iPod using a 30-pin cable. Your iPod should show up in iTunes or the Music application. Now click on the iPod in the left-hand navigation menu (top left on iTunes). Now here's where the process varies depending on if you're on MacOS or Windows (iTunes).
On macOS, click on Sync Settings in the top right, which will open up a Finder window. Then click Music in the top tab menu.
On Windows (iTunes), simply click on the Music tab on the left-hand navigation menu.
Now, check the box next to "Sync Music", and be sure that "Entire music library" is selected. Then click Apply (or Done if on iTunes on Windows) in the bottom right corner.
Your iPod should now begin to sync automatically, and you should see a progress bar either at the top or bottom of your screen showing the songs syncing.
If you're having trouble following this written guide or just prefer a visual tutorial, check out my video tutorial on YouTube here.