iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

iPod as a Portable Hard Drive

If being a portable entertainment system and organizer isn't enough, your iPod can also serve as a portable disk to shuttle documents, presentations, and other files from one computer to another. (The Touch doesn't naturally work as an external drive unless you use utility programs like TouchCopy, which was mentioned back in Chapter 5.)

To give your iPod these file-toting powers:

❶ Plug your Pod into the computer.

❷ When the iPod icon shows up in the Source list, select it and then click the Summary tab in the main iTunes window.

❸ Turn on the checkbox next to "Enable disk use" in the Options area of the Summary screen. (If you have an iPod Shuffle, use the onscreen slide to designate just how much of your one or two gigabytes you want to use for music and how much for files.)

❹ In the lower-right corner of the iTunes window, click the Apply button. If you forget, iTunes reminds you that you modified an iPod setting and prompts you to OK the change.

Your iPod now shows up in the My Computer area of Windows or on the Mac desktop. You can drag files on and off the iPod just like you would with any other drive connected to the computer: Drag files onto the iPod's icon, or double-click the icon and create folders to put your files in. Delete files by dragging them to the Trash or Recycle Bin. Steer clear of the folders labelled Calendars, Contacts, and Photos; ...