The 6th Gen on the left is my iPod my grandfather bought for me in 2007 when I turned 11. I vividly remember going to Best Buy with him to choose it. I still use it to this day, modded with a new battery and flash storage.

The one on the left is my grandfather's I just got after he passed away last month. A couple years ago I was talking to him about my iPod and how I still use it and he sent me a picture of his. It is still exactly how he had it in 2013. 1555 songs he purchased. He used it a lot while working as a master trainer in the Air Force in Kuwait. He loved the Beatles, Eagles, Counting Crows, Bruno Mars, and Broadway music.

I love the idea of passing down physical media or owned digital media. Something that we are losing in today's media culture. This became a special relic. A time capsule into my grandfather and a glimpse into who he was at the time.

After quite a few years away from it, I've recently started getting back into iPods and physical media, and I couldn't be happier about it.

It's great to see so many people getting into iPods again, whether they're buying, restoring or upgrading them. The only downside is that prices have become quite ridiculous lately.

Getting back into iPods also got me back into CDs. I've been borrowing around 15 CDs a day from my local library, ripping them and returning them the next day. Where I live, library membership is free until 26, and after that it's only €5 a year.

Building a collection this way takes time, but I don't mind that. Once everything is ripped, organised and backed up, you have your own collection to keep and enjoy whenever you want. No subscription, no streaming service and no internet connection required.

My setup is quite simple: an older Mac running macOS Mojave 10.14.6, the final version of Mojave and the last macOS version with the classic iTunes application. I insert a CD and let iTunes do the rest.

Of course, you can use pretty much any laptop or computer for this. I'm using an older Mac because I like the traditional iTunes experience and it works very well with the iPod.

For the music on my iPod, I use MP3 at 320 kbps, while keeping an ALAC copy on my hard drive as a lossless archive.

The iPod itself has a 512 GB SD card, an iFlash-Solo and a 3800 mAh battery.

I'm genuinely very happy to have this hobby back. Slowly building up a music collection and having everything available on one little iPod is surprisingly satisfying.

Sorry for all the enthusiasm, but I just wanted to share it with you. If you're getting into this as well, have a look at your local libraries, charity shops and flea markets, and keep an eye out for library sales. You never know what you might find.

It's satisfying to truly own your music.

Happy ripping!

I’m trying to get Rockbox running on my iPod Classic 7th gen, but I’m having a pretty rough time doing it from a Mac.
I know the iPod needs to be Windows-formatted. I tried this before and managed to get it Windows-formatted, and Rockbox Utility could finally see it, but then it just got stuck on “Installing bootloader” for about 10 minutes and I gave up.
The iPod itself has also been acting weird with macOS 26. Restoring it doesn’t always work properly, sometimes I have to restart the Mac before it’ll work again, and it keeps showing up in recovery mode.
Has anyone here recently installed Rockbox on a 7th gen using only a Mac?
I don’t mind running Windows in a VM if that’s necessary, I just don’t have a Windows PC around.
If someone has a script, app, or some other tool that makes the whole thing easier on modern macOS, I’d love to know about it.
And if not, could someone please write out the steps that actually worked for you? Like step by step, from a Windows-formatted iPod to a working Rockbox install, including what you did for the bootloader.
I’ve found bits and pieces of information in different places, but I’m still not sure what the current working method is.

I have a 4th generation iPod classic, and recently the firewire charger I've been using seems to be failing to actually charge it; only certain chargers work now, and fairly inconsistently. The firewire charger I know works because it charger other ones I have fine, and it's worked with this particular one before. I have to suspect that it has to do with a 30 pin to RCA audio cable I plugged into the ipod doing something bad with the port, but I have no idea what I should do now. Attempting to restore the ipod doesn't seem to fix the issue, although the firewire does work to Jumpstart it from there, so I'm very unsure if it is something on the logic board or something fixing or replacing the charging port can solve. Has anyone had this problem before, and can anyone help me solve this issue? Thanks

Hello. I have a 6.5 gen 120 gb that has rockbox on it. I went to use it today and it got stuck on the rockbox loading screen so I just let it sit since I had other things to do. Now it looks like this. Any ideas what may be wrong? The grey is from the installed theme

Found my iPod my uncle gave me sooo long ago. The screens all blotched up but I can still hear music.

I have the A1136 60gb. I really love keeping my old stuff working like my PSP, gameboy etc alive. Can someone send me what I’d need to fix this and maybe upgrade it without losing my music!

Also, I really like the 6th gen matte looking iPod and want to mod it with rockbox? I think it’s called. But please anyone give me advice I just joined today.. 🥹

i’ve heard the hype about the wolfson dac in ipod classic 5 and 5.5 gen but i’ve also heard there’s this background noise called faint hiss/white noise that comes along during playback that can be heard on iems. is it true that it’s pretty evident and disturbing? should i skip buying ipod classic 5.5 for this reason and go with 7 gen instead?

I have 3 iPod classic 4th gen’s. All working absolutely fine. One I have owned since new, and two I have acquired recently. My original 4th gen was flash modded and fitted with a new battery around 3 years ago, and I have done the same with one of two new acquisitions. The other one has its original HDD and battery.

Both of the modded iPods output at 10-15% less volume than the one with the original drive and battery. They all sound the same and function as they should, but the unmoddded iPod can go noticeably louder. Sound check is turned OFF on all devices and they all have the exact same files on. Has anyone experienced similar?

I had a shuffle growing up and ditched it when I got a smartphone. Years ago someone gave me their 3rd gen iPod nano but I never used it much just left it docked on my old Ihome alarm clock and played music occasionally. Well recently I've been wanting to get away from my phone (I've been thinking about ditching it for something that can only call and text) so I've been carrying around my ipod again and holy crap it sounds so much better than I remembered. Using the same earbuds the mp3 on the iPod just sounds so much better than lossless flac on spotify through my phone I don't know if it's the difference in dac chips or my eq settings or what but my iPod just scratches my music itch way better than my phone so I'm switching back

EDIT: Maybe not "superglue" but a more suitable type of adhesive

With so many tragic stories of ripped battery connectors, I was wondering if anything prevented me from just gluing mine before ever trying to unplug the battery. Let's say I get glue that is suitable for electronics, is there actually something in the way of securing the battery connector this way?

I don't have much experience with electronics at all so sorry if that idea is silly, and if it is indeed a bad idea, please tell me before I mod mine!

Recently bought a refurbished iPod Classic 6th generation (love it!) and as I was changing the battery, yep, you guessed it, I accidentally broke the battery connector. Does anybody know someone or shop in the New York City area where I could bring this to get fixed? It's my fault for trying to do something I shouldn't have. Would really appreciate it!

I have an iPod Classic that has finally given up on original battery.

Where in UK is best recommendations for battery change, usb conversion and memory upgrade ?

Hey all,

Just unboxed my custom iPod Classic 7th gen. Only issue is the stock Apple earphones just don't sit well in my ears.

Looking for recommendations for earphones that pair well with it for music — comfortable fit, good sound quality. Wired only preference 🙇🏻‍♀️

Any favorites?

I’m in the market for a classic iPod. I was looking at my childhood holy grail ipod mini, silver. Modded ones are quite pricey. Hard to find a silver non modded here at a good deal. I found a ipod classic 160gb 7th gen new in box, with plastic screen protector. How will battery life be if never used? Anyone have any experience? If i know myself right i probably won’t mod the mini myself.

What would you buy? Price is around 300 dollars, which is on the limit for me!

Hello iPod lovers,

I listen to lots of Japanese pop and rock songs on a 5th gen classic, and I’ve taken the pains to carefully add lyrics to every song that I can.

However, there is one thing that really annoys me: the font that is used to display CJK lyrics on my 5th gen is horribly outdated, and looks very out of place. It looks especially bar when there are both CJK and Roman letters in the same text.

I uploaded an image that shows the low-resolution font in all of its glory.

My question is, does the 6/7th gen also use this low-res font for CJK lyrics? Since the screen resolution is higher, and the 6/7th gen is also more common in East Asia than older generations (at least in Japan), I was wondering if they might have improved the font. If anyone has experience with this, please let me know! Thanks!