IPad – Can the playlists and ratings be recovered from iOS devices when an iTunes library is lost

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I recently had to do a complete reinstall of my C: drive due to a catastrophic hardware failure. Unfortunately, the iTunes database and play lists and play counts were lost with no backup.

Fortunately, my iTunes media files were on D:, so I can re-import those songs and movies, but my playlists and other sync settings were lost.

Both my iPad and iPhone still have their synced playlists, but if I try to resync them – iTunes wants to erase them. I want to keep the the ratings and play count of 4000+ songs. My ratings and play counts feed into smart playlists to determine what goes into the limited space on my mobile devices.

Is there a way to get iTunes to read and/or respect/not erase the ratings and play count from a device it has yet to sync to?

What's the least amount of work I can do to recover this data from my iOS devices?

Best Answer

On Windows I used SharePod for this some years ago

SharePod is easy to use and works! Heres some of the main features:

  • Add & remove music and videos from your iPod
  • Add, remove and edit playlists
  • Add & remove album art
  • View and backup photos
  • Copy music, videos and playlists from your iPod to PC
  • Import music/videos into your iTunes library, including playlists and ratings
  • Tag editing
  • Drag n' drop to and from Explorer
  • Simple, clean interface
  • Quick to load and use with no unnessary complicated features
  • Support for iPhone and iTouch

And whats more, SharePod is completely free! SharePod was designed from the start to be lightweight, quick and responsive, it has all (well hopefully most...!) of the features you need and none of the features you dont.

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