ipodsync

Upload music to an iPod nano 6G/7G without iTunes/Apple Music — straight from the terminal, on macOS and Linux. The iPod mounts as a plain volume; ipodsync edits its SQLite library, signs it (hashAB) and generates cover art itself.

⚠️ Alpha. Works on real hardware, but it writes to the player's binary database, so keep backups (the tool makes one before every edit). Browsing the iPod in Finder or the Music app is fine — just don't let Apple's software auto-sync it: a sync rebuilds the library from your computer and would drop manually-added tracks (keep the iPod in "manually manage music" mode).

Features

• list / export — inspect and download tracks from the device (with tags).
• add — upload an MP3, metadata from tags, cover art attached automatically (from an embedded APIC/covr): shown both in Now Playing and in list/Albums views.
• rm — remove a track (+file), re-sign.
• playlists — playlists / pl-create / pl-add / pl-rm / pl-del.
• cover — attach a cover to an already-uploaded track.
• works on an empty (wiped) library too — no iTunes needed to initialize it.

Install

ipodsync is a command-line tool, so install it with pipx — it lands in an isolated environment while the ipodsync command stays available everywhere:

pipx install ipodsync

No pipx yet? brew install pipx (macOS) or sudo apt install pipx (Debian/Ubuntu), then pipx ensurepath.

pip install ipodsync fails with externally-managed-environment?

On modern Debian/Ubuntu (PEP 668) the system Python is locked, so a plain pip install into it is refused — that's an OS guard, not an ipodsync issue. Use pipx (above), or a virtualenv:

python3 -m venv ~/.venvs/ipodsync
~/.venvs/ipodsync/bin/pip install ipodsync
~/.venvs/ipodsync/bin/ipodsync --help

Requires Python ≥ 3.9. Pure-Python — no compiler or native library needed.

Note: uploading currently supports MP3 only. FLAC/AAC → ALAC transcoding (which will need ffmpeg) is on the roadmap and not implemented yet.

Usage

ipodsync status                     # ready / no access / not connected
ipodsync list
ipodsync add "Song.mp3"             # + cover auto
ipodsync add a.mp3 b.mp3 c.mp3      # several at once (one library write)
ipodsync add -f ~/Music/album       # a whole folder (recursively)
ipodsync add "Song.mp3" --no-cover
ipodsync export ~/Music/ipod --by-album          # download everything, in Artist/Album/ folders
ipodsync export ~/Music/ipod --album "Breakdown" # download one album (or --artist NAME / --pid PID)
ipodsync cover 123456789 --image cover.jpg
ipodsync rm 123456789               # removes the track and its audio file
ipodsync rm 123456789 --keep-file   # …but leave the audio file on the iPod
ipodsync -b add "Song.mp3"          # -b: back up the library first (off by default)

Writes don't back up the library by default — pass -b / --backup to snapshot iTunes Library.itlp to ~/ipod-backups before editing.

The iPod is discovered under /Volumes (macOS) and /media, /run/media, /mnt (Linux) by the presence of iPod_Control/. To point at it explicitly, set IPODSYNC_MOUNT=/path/to/mount.

Linux: mounting the iPod

On macOS, Finder mounts the iPod automatically — you never need --mount, just run ipodsync add song.mp3. A headless Linux box usually doesn't mount it: the device shows up as a disk but stays unmounted, so ipodsync reports "iPod not found".

The easy way is mount once, work, unmount once:

ipodsync --mount              # detect + mount the iPod (asks for sudo); stays mounted
ipodsync add song-1.mp3       # add as many tracks as you like…
ipodsync add song-2.mp3
ipodsync add -f ~/Music/album # …or a whole folder at once
ipodsync list
ipodsync --unmount            # unmount when done — safe to unplug

--mount leaves the iPod at /mnt/ipodsync, which the following commands find on their own. Pass -b to any write command to snapshot the library first (ipodsync -b add song.mp3).

Or manage the mount yourself and point IPODSYNC_MOUNT at it:

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o rw,uid=$(id -u),gid=$(id -g) /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod
IPODSYNC_MOUNT=/mnt/ipod ipodsync add song.mp3
sudo umount /mnt/ipod                     # before unplugging

Find the iPod's partition with lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT (an hfsplus one, roughly the iPod's size — e.g. sda2 14.7G hfsplus).

Two catches:

• The GUID. Signing needs the device's FireWireGUID, which lives in a Device/SysInfo* file — but those are HFS+-compressed and unreadable by the Linux driver. ipodsync works around it by reading the GUID from the device's USB serial automatically. If that fails, pass it yourself:

  udevadm info -q property -n /dev/sda | grep ID_SERIAL
  #   ID_SERIAL=Apple_iPod_0123456789ABCDEF-0:0
  IPODSYNC_FIREWIRE_GUID=0123456789ABCDEF IPODSYNC_MOUNT=/mnt/ipod ipodsync add song.mp3

• Journaling. If the mount comes up read-only, the volume is journaled HFS+; disable the journal once, on a Mac: diskutil disableJournal /Volumes/iPod. Forcing it with -o force,rw on a still-journaled volume can corrupt the filesystem — don't.

How it works

• Transport — mass storage: files are written under iPod_Control/.
• Database — SQLite iTunes Library.itlp/*.itdb (not iTunesCDB, which the device regenerates on its own). Only Locations.itdb is hash-protected (.cbk).
• hashAB — anti-tamper .cbk signature (white-box AES). Pure-Python port of dstaley/hashab (public domain), 100/100 test vectors. No compiler or native lib — the package installs everywhere.
• Cover art — pure-Python writer for ArtworkDB + F<fmt>_1.ithmb (RGB565 LE, formats 1010/1013/1015/1016), appended incrementally.

Status / roadmap

	Status
Upload / remove / export / playlists (MP3)	✅ confirmed on nano 7G
Cover art (pure-Python)	✅ confirmed on nano 7G
Empty-library bootstrap	✅
Pure-Python hashAB (no native lib, installs everywhere)	✅ 100/100 vectors
Cross-platform device discovery (macOS + Linux)	✅
FLAC/AAC → ALAC	⬜

Development

git clone … && cd ipodsync
python -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

License

MIT (see LICENSE). The vendored hashAB algorithm is public domain. Not affiliated with Apple; iPod and iTunes are trademarks of Apple.