Q: I have pictures in my iPod nano that I want to copy to my computer. Since my computer died and I lost all my pictures from that computer I badly need to save the pictures from my iPod to transfer them to my new computer. How would I do that? Thanks for helping me!
– Dinah
A: You can recover your photos from your iPod nano by using one of several third-party tools that are designed for this purpose. It’s important to note, however, that depending upon your specific model of iPod nano and whether you choose to store full resolution photos on it when you originally synced them from iTunes, you may be very limited in the maximum resolutions that you can recover.
For example, the early first and second-generation iPod nano models did not provide any support for TV output, and therefore did not store photos at any resolutions higher than the iPod screen itself, a paltry 176 x 132 resolution. With the on-TV display capabilities added to the third-generation and later iPod nano models, a 640×480 version of your photos was also stored. Further, in iTunes itself you had the option to “Store Full Resolution Photos” on these models, which stored a copy of the original photo on the iPod itself that can be accessed through Disk Mode.
You can find more information on recovering photos and other content from your iPod and some of the suggested tools for doing so on page 4 of our our iPod 201 article, Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer.