14 DAY TRIAL // It is easy to see why Apple made it so that copying music to an iPod is a one-way street, but there are times when your iPod is the only actual backup you have of the music, other than the CDs you used to rip the music from. Now, unless there is someone out there that actually enjoys the idea of having to re-rip a boatload of albums, using one of the third party applications to copy the songs back is your only real option. Things used to be even worse when it came to music purchased off the iTunes Store, but Apple has made it easier. Unfortunately manually ripped music saw no such love, so something along like Senuti is still the only way to go.
What it does Senuti is one of those small iPod recovery utilities that will let you recover from the brink of disaster by copying the songs and play lists on your iPod back on your computer. It may be a bit more complicated than an official solution, and there are certain unpleasant outcomes if things are not done right, but it is still better than the manual labor.
Working with it Similarly to all applications that let you copy songs from your iPod back on your computer, it is very important that things should be done right, otherwise, one faces the risk of wiping their iPod clean. Before you actually do anything, it is highly recommended that you go into Senuti's help and read the instructions and follow them to the letter. The key is to ensure that iTunes will not have its dastardly way with your iPod, and ultimately pillage its contents. While this is a requirement to being able to use Senuti properly, it is a good idea all around.
Once everything is set up, and you have your iPod playing happily with Senuti, it is time to get down to the dirty details. The application will list the contents of your iPod in an iTunes like setup. On the left you can see your iPod and iTunes, with the sources on top in orange and the play lists below them in purple. On the right you can see a big list of all the individual songs on your iPod and play lists. The contents of the iTunes library will not be visible, but you should not need them anyway. Songs that are present both on your computer and on your iPod will be indicated by a blue dot next to them, so you can avoid unnecessary duplicates. If there are too many such songs, you may simply hide all songs that are already present in iTunes. From this point on, you can search, make selections, and when the important moment comes, all that you needed is a simple drag and drop. However, before you actually start copying files across, you might want to spend some time to set up the preferences properly. It might not be apparent, but there is a lot of headache you can save yourself from by doing this now rather than later. By default, the application is set up to copy songs to the desktop, and never to ask about the destination? not ideal for those of us with a separate system partition. Using the iTunes Music Folder location might be appropriate but the safest way is to just manually navigate to the location where you want the files to be. Another important aspect is how files already present are handled. Make sure that Senuti will not copy them again, overwrite or rename these files, or you will have to come back later to fix broken links and duplicates. Last but not least, the application can organize copied music as well as automatically add it to iTunes.
Wires wires Although it is a rare occurrence, it may happen that songs copied across using Senuti skip or be otherwise mutilated. If this does occur, it is not the fault of the application, since it just uses the OS X copy function to move the data across. In most cases this is a result of a bad USB or Firewire cable, a bad port, or something deeper in the computer such as interference with another connected device. If this does occur, the only real solution is to simply try another cable or another computer and then copy the files across a network.
No love for the new arrivals While Senuti will work perfectly fine with what might be called 'standard' iPods, if you have one of the new iPhones or iPod touches, you are out of luck. None of these devices will be supported, and you will be unable to recover your songs from them. The way the information is stored is different, and the developer has not caught up with Apple's releases yet, but this is a general issue with these types of application.
The Good Senuti is one of the most popular iPod recovery applications out there, and for a good reason. The interface is good, and it is customizable, with good documentation that gives step by step instruction on how not to trash the contents of your iPod.
The Bad The default preferences are less than ideal. Unless you change them you can end up with a ton of songs on your desktop and multiple copies of the same tracks.
The Truth For a free ware, Apple workaround application Senuti is good stuff. The only thing that is really missing is support for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
