Q: I recently received a new iPod nano and was wondering how I go about transferring my purchased music from my old iPod mini to my new iPod nano.
– Remington
A: There isn’t really any direct way to transfer content from one iPod to another. You must first transfer the content back to your computer, import it into iTunes, and then synchronize that content to your new iPod in the same way you normally would.
If you already have an iTunes library on your computer that you’ve been using with your iPod mini, then this is simply a matter of connecting the iPod nano to your existing iTunes library and configuring the synchronization preferences as you normally would.
On the other hand, if you have been storing your music only on your iPod mini, you will first need to recover it to your computer and either rebuild your iTunes library or reimport it into a new iTunes library. Note that if you are only concerned about content that you have purchased from the iTunes Store, then iTunes itself can handle this for you. Simply connect the iPod mini to iTunes, and choose “Transfer Purchases” from the iTunes File menu, and iTunes will search your iPod mini for any purchased content and transfer it back to your computer’s iTunes library. Note that your computer must be authorized for the same iTunes Store account that was originally used to purchase the music for this to work.
Our iPod 201 article on Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer provides quite a bit of additional information on how to do this.
