Exporting iTunes playlists to non-iPods?

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Podcasting, Apple, Shareware, Freeware

Exporting iTunes playlists to non-iPods? - Ask DLS

by Jason Clarke Jan 11th 2007

A little over a year ago I wrote a post entitled How to Fix iTunes. One of the utilities I pointed to in that article is called idleTunes, and I used it to keep my iTunes library tuned up, and to export playlists of podcasts to my non-iPod MP3 player. While I still love idleTunes, it stopped working with iTunes back when Apple updated to iTunes version 6, and has not been updated since last summer. So, I finally went looking for a suitable replacement, but I'm having very little luck.

The only utility I can find that is supposed to do what I'm looking to do is called iTunes Agent, and unfortunately for me it does not seem to want to play nicely on my computer. Once started, it takes over 30 seconds to respond to any command, and has become totally unusable to me. I'm fully willing to consider the fact that the problem could be my PC, given the number of downloads I test. But a reinstallation is not on the cards right now, considering that otherwise my system is working fine. So I need to find an alternative solution.

Here are my needs:

Needs to be able to export any playlist from iTunes to any specified folder or drive
Needs to generate an M3U playlist to keep the audio files in the correct order

And here are my "nice to have's":

It would be nice if it could optionally delete the tracks from iTunes (and the hard drive) upon successfully syncing to a folder / device
It would be nice if it could add new tracks and delete dead tracks from the iTunes library

So, based on these requirements, do you know of a utility that I should be trying? I realize Apple probably doesn't look too kindly on people writing this sort of software, since they try so hard to push you into buying an iPod. And while I'd love an iPod, I can't currently justify the purchase of one. So I'll leave it to you, dear readers, to point me in the right direction.

Tags: idleTunes, iPods, iTunes, iTunes Agent, ItunesAgent, playlists

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

David said 7:27PM on 1-11-2007

I've heard in the past that Winamp had a plugin available that allowed you to sync songs from Winamp to an iPod. After doing a quick Google, I found this (http://www.mlipod.com/). I've never used this (as I have a 5G iPod) and can't vouch for it, but this looks like it might be a good alternative to using iTunes to manage and transfer music.

David said 7:47PM on 1-11-2007

I misinterpreted the post entirely (got the scenario reversed). Please delete above comment.

David said 7:48PM on 1-11-2007

I misinterpreted the post (got the scenario reversed). Please ignore my initial comment :)

RCR said 8:57PM on 1-11-2007

Media Monkey works pretty well.

Tyler said 8:57PM on 1-11-2007

I've tried MediaMonkey http://www.filehippo.com/download_mediamonkey/ before, and it tends to work pretty well. I haven't used it recently, but when I used it before it seemed like it needed polishing in a few spots. Otherwise, it seemed pretty good. It seems more like an itunes replacement than anything.

What music player are you using? If it is one supported by http://www.redchairsoftware.com/ then I would recommend their software over anything. I use the ipod version, but it is available for many other players as well. It integrates with the shell, and creates a right click menu to send an album/mp3/audio to the player directly from windows explorer. It doesn't integrate with itunes, though, but does transfer files between a device and computer very well.

Jason Clarke said 8:58PM on 1-11-2007

I think I should clarify that I'm currently using iTunes, and have some significant amount of time invested in rating my songs, building smart playlists, etc. So what I'm looking for is a utility that will allow me to grab pre-existing playlists from iTunes, and move them to my MP3 player.

Jason Clarke said 12:01AM on 1-12-2007

Hi Scott - that's almost it; unfortunately it only does the playlist, not the actual files. I need a utility EXACTLY like iTunes Export, but that also copies the MP3s to the destination folder.

Matt said 12:04AM on 1-12-2007

I use HotRecorder for Music (www.hotrecorder.com) -- it converts iTunes and Yahoo music files to .wav or .mp3 files (which I then transfer to my Creative device).

James said 3:05AM on 1-12-2007

I'm sure all your guys suggestions are much appreciated, but I'm not sure that's what he's after- I know I'm not. It's quite a simple thing. You have an MP3 player, you have all your songs/playlists in iTunes, and you want some basic ability to sync. Simple.

There's gotta be something out there?

ed said 10:07AM on 1-12-2007

try mass storage synchronizer. i use it to sync a non ipod device with my itunes. after some tweaking, works pretty well!

ed said 10:09AM on 1-12-2007

try mass storage synchronizer. i tweaked it a bit and works great.

Scott Dupuie said 10:52AM on 1-12-2007

What you want is iTunes Export.
http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/index.html

tengu said 4:20PM on 1-12-2007

Media Monkey all the way, I've never used anything else for my iPod and it keeps getting better with new releases. It does things like add album art from the music folder to each track as its been transfered to the iPod and cool stuff like that.

I've never need anything else.

Kiddie Car said 5:55PM on 1-12-2007

Instead of iT*, I use:

foobar2000 audio player
Copyright (C) 2001-2006, Peter Pawlowski
Portions copyright (C) 2005-2006 Holger Stenger

... with the foo_dop.dll add-in. I removed crappy iTunes and have no desire ever to use it again.

Tony Williams said 10:16PM on 1-12-2007

I have just the tool for you - it's #4 on my list - itunes export http://www.digg.com/software/Top_10_FREE_MP3_Utiliites_That_Money_Can_t_Buy

it will export playlists to your chosen format, including m3u to your chosen folder and it can also include/exclude protected files, AAC files

I run it once a week so I can play my iTunes playlists on XBMC on my Xbox, as Apple stopped using the daap protocol with iTunes 7 (bastards!)

Feel free to plug my site Jason ;-)

Bob said 2:45PM on 1-15-2007

I too have a non-apple mp3 player (a creative Zen Vision:m) and I was looking for something similar to this so that I could easily create playlists. I never found anything, but I heard that Winamp now supports creative devices, so I tried that and it works beautifully, even minus the exorbitant amount of system resources that iTunes likes to use.

TorontoKev said 2:54PM on 1-15-2007

I've found iTunes agent to be very useful and doesn't give me a problem SO LONG AS the device has a drive letter.

BUT the new PLAYS FOR SURE devices don't do that - they make a special MEDIA PLAYER section in my computer - and i've not found anything that works with them. which is rubbish - i got my mum one for christmas, and she's technically challenged - and it would be great if she could plug in, wait 10 seconds, unplug, and have it sync'ed (podcasts etc), just like an ipod, without having to touch the keys or mouse.

WoNdErGeEkBoY said 6:10PM on 1-15-2007

Funny you asked! I've actually just wrote a simple C# program that exports from iTunes to Windows Media Player. The only thing my program doesn't have is to delete the tracks from iTunes. Email me if you like a copy.

James said 8:29PM on 1-17-2007

Alright, from one of the links already given I found it. BadApple, from http://www.badfruit.com allows you to sync playlists and music to any DAP that mounts as a drive, from within iTunes.

TorontoKev said 2:27PM on 1-22-2007

But what about devices that don't mount as a drive, like all PLAYS FOR SURE devices that mount as a Media Device?

Like:

Sandisk Sansa
Creative Zen
etc...

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