rePear logo
rePear.iPod liberation.

Current version: 0.4.1 (2009-02-25). See what's new or get it at SourceForge.

rePear is a very useful tool for all iPod users who, for some reason, are not happy about iTunes and want to manage their music files for themselves. With rePear, you can copy music to the iPod with Explorer, Finder, Konqueror, Nautilus or any other file manager you like (yes, cp will work, too ;) and have it played back by the iPod with (almost) no hassles. The only thing you have to do is start this litte program just after plugging the iPod into your USB port and before unplugging it.

Please note that rePear is experimental software and may or may not work for you. You should always create a backup of the /iPod_Control/iTunes directory before trying rePear. Moreover, I won't take any responsibility or liability for any damage caused by the use of rePear.

How it works

rePear scans the whole iPod volume for playable files, retrieving metadata (e.g. ID3 tags) from these files, and moving them to a location where the iPod can find them. The collected metadata and file names are then written to an iTunesDB file, which the iPod requires for proper blayback. This process is called freezing. rePear keeps track of the original filenames of the files added to the database. Thus, it is possible to unfreeze the song database, i.e. move the music files back to the location where they came from (all inside the iPod's filesystem, of course).

How to use it

For detailed instructions, please refer to the detailed step-by-step manual on the usage page.

Supported Models

iPod 1GVery likely works, but has not been confirmed yet.
iPod 2G
iPod 3G
iPod 4G
iPod photo 4GSupported.
iPod video 5G
iPod classic 6G
iPod mini 1GVery likely works, but has not been confirmed yet.
iPod mini 2G
iPod nano 1GSupported.
iPod nano 2G
iPod nano 3G
iPod nano 4G
iPod nano 5GNot supported due to incompatible database structure.
There are currently no plans to support these models.
iPod nano 6G
iPod shuffle 1GSupported, but you should use rebuild_db instead, because it's better suited for these models and easier to use.
iPod shuffle 2G
iPod shuffle 3GNot supported due to incompatible database structure.
There are currently no plans to support these models.
iPod shuffle 4G
iPod touchNot supported and will never be. The iOS devices are fundamentally different from normal iPods in that they don't allow direct file system access over USB, which is a basic requirement for rePear.
iPhone
iPad

Features

The following things are already possible (or not possible) with rePear:

Currently implemented

Not implemented

Impossible to implement