Restore an iPod

Restore an iPod
Mac Tip #370, 04 February 2009

You may have recently been the lucky recipient of a new iPod. If so, perhaps you’re thinking of selling or giving away your old one. Before you do that you’ll need to restore it to its as-if-new condition.

An iPod displayed in iTunes.

As you’ve used your iPod you’ve probably added music to it, perhaps also videos, contacts, calendar appointments, and maybe even files, for some iPods. With recent iPods you may have added software applications too.

Before you pass your old iPod along, you need to clean off all that ‘stuff’. If you leave music on there and hand the iPod off to another person you’ll probably run foul of copyright law, and I’ll bet you don’t want to leave all your personal contacts and appointments on there either.

It’s very easy to wipe your iPod and put it back to an as-new state.

1. Plug the iPod in to iTunes.
2. Select the iPod in the list of Sources in the left-hand column.
3. Click the Restore button on the Summary tab of the iTunes window.
4. Agree to any alerts and warnings that appear.

Are you sure you want to restore your iPod?

iTunes wipes your iPod clean and sets it up ready for a new user.

Once it’s ready click the Update button on the Summary tab of the iTunes screen and install any software updates that are available.

Unfortunately this Tip only deals with software. If your iPod is covered in fingerprints or scratches you’ll need to get to work with a polishing cloth.