Back in September I wrote a short post about the then new iPod nano. Since then, Apple has also released the new iPod capable of playing videos on a slightly larger screen, in addition to the previously supported photo capabilities. My post in September has recently been barraged with comments from readers asking how to put photos on the iPod. My guess is that this sudden spike in traffic is due to the popularity of the iPod as a Christmas gift. I made an attempt at answering this question in what I thought was a clear and concise manner:
The first thing you need is a version of iTunes that supports photos and the nano. Your best bet is to grab the latest version at Apple’s website.
After you install iTunes you can connect your iPod nano to your computer. Windows and Mac should both recognize the iPod without any extra drivers. If iTunes is not open, open it. Your iPod should appear in the source list on the left of the window. If it does not, eject your iPod (Mac) or stop your iPod (Windows) and disconnect it from your computer. Wait a few seconds and reconnect the iPod with iTunes open.
When iTunes recognizes your iPod, you can edit iTunes preferences. At this point, I only know for sure what the Windows version of iTunes will do. Select the iPod tab. There should be a tab within the iPod tab that is labeled Photos. Select that tab.
In the Photos tab, you can select folders where iTunes should search for photos. You can also let iTunes automatically synchronize all of your photos or manually select which photos should get synchronized, just like how you can setup the music synchronization. Once you update your iPod, you should have photos on it.
Apparently, I wasn’t as clear and concise as I thought I was, because I received no less than a dozen other comments from readers who were unable to follow my directions for one reason or another. I just found on Google that Apple already has a quick tutorial. So, I hope linking to this tutorial will make it easier for people to answer their own question.
I am still wondering how my simple post on the nano has received as much traffic as it has when the Apple tutorial is a first page hit on Google when asking the same question. And for those who have not read it yet, Jacqui and Clint wrote up a review for Ars shortly after the nano was released.
Updated: I updated the link to Apple’s tutorial iPod 101. Apple changed the URL slightly since I originally posted this. Thanks to WordPress stats, I was able to see the bad link and fix it.
Yes i have alredy seen that and about 50 other pages which all say the same lol, i gatherd that was how to do it without looking at these pages but apple dont seem to have an answer to the problem i am having, which is i select the folder which i want my photos from, itunes recoqnizes this because it tells me how many there are, then i click ok and it says updating ipod but then i get an error messege saying ” the ipod “ipod” cannot be updated, the required folder cannot be found”. I have also tried changed the name of the ipod and everything, sorry to be a mither im just getting very frustrated with it lol, thanks guys
Jon
does putting photos on ipod nano take any memory
Yes. Photos take up space just like they do on your computer. If you tell iTunes to not store the full sized picture on your iPod, then it will store a smaller version called a thumbnail. The thumbnail is generally much smaller, unless the actual photo is itself small. You would only need the full sized pictures if you planned on connecting your iPod to a TV using the AV cable, or if you wanted to transfer the pictures from your iPod to another computer.
this was no fricken help you morons!
tnx lot it helpd! lol xXx
It helpd me also thank you soso much. my friend told me it didnt work if i didnt have I-Photo so i was a bit sad cuz i dont have a mac but thank you now i have my pictures on my ipod
I don’t know why, but in the photo tab portion it only gives me the option to automatically update pictures and not manually. I need to do it manually! Help? :-/
Yo,
Same thing as Jon. I’ve tried those steps before but the same shit happens. The ipod ‘IPOD’ cannot be updated. daadadadada read from or written to… help please..
Unfortunately, I can’t provide much help right now. A few weeks ago when I was almost hit by a train, I lost the iPod out in the snow. When we found it a week later, it wouldn’t turn on. To top things off, the Apple Store was of little help when I brought it in to have it examined.
So, as of right now, I am iPod-less. I can’t plug in my iPod to step through things to figure out what’s going on with your iPod problems. Sorry, everyone
How do you put pictures on an ipod 30gb (video)??
hey,
on my itunes i go under edit and theres no “photos” i have no idea what to do! helo plz! p.s. i have a nano
chelsea
@chelsea: To sync your photos, open the iPod Options. Then select on the Photos tab. You can select the folders of photos that you want to sync.
how do u put photos on the nano ipod
help me
@nick: Please tell me what specific problem(s) you are experiencing with putting photos on your iPod?
hi. i can’t get unwanted photos off my nano. what should i do?
Hey everyone, yeah I bought my iPod just yesterday and im having the same problem as Jon and DanMC as where the music loads fine but when it comes to photos it all creates a problem. We followed all the steps:
1)Open itunes and go to edit,preferences.
2)click the ipod tab and then the photos tab.
3)synchronize the folder we want and click ok.
after than the photos will optimize but then when the update begins and says transfering photos to ipod/updating ipod it stops and gives a warning of “ipod could not be updated. The required folder cannot be found.
Ive been playing with it non stop and still cannot figure it out. I’ll keep trying and let you know if i come up with a solution but it’s lookin a little grim. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
P.S: Be careful with this issue, i have lost all of my photos 3 times already trying to figure this out. Thankfully i had backups
can u give me an instruction how to put photos on ur ipod pls
A thankyow beaucoup much!
That helped but I have to be careful where i put me photos now!, don’t want private ones on me ipod now do we!?
Thankyou so much!! Very informative. I never even noticed those tabs before, how oblivious do I wanna be?
This was a great article. More helpful than Apple!
xoxoxo
when i tried to put photos in my ipod video 30 gb
a error message the required folder cannout be founded
why ??
please help me
Hey cool thanks, this is a quite bit easier to understand than the Apple ones.
pleas
help
hey everyone. i am having trouble getting photos onto my nano. you see, nothing is a worry getting sogs onto the ipod … but I can’t get photos. on the ipod tab, there is no “photo” icon ect. I tried to drag photos from an outside folder across to the ipod tab, hoping it would update that way. which it didn’t. so, how come there is no “photo” tab inside the ipod tab?? if I don’t need to have this, how else can I put photos onto it??
many thanks, brett.
hey mark i have the same probelms with jon and the others i go to the edit, prefrences tab then i go to the ipod and etc tab and it saids updating and it gives me a error message saying it cannot be written to or from the folder. whats the problem? ive been playing with it for 2 days and i still didnt get it to work help me!!
I am also trying to upload some pictures. I go to “edit” then preferences but there is no “ipod” tap. I have general, then podcast (not ipod). My daughter’s shows up ipod after “general” tab but mine does. I have uploaded itunes 7 .
@Sherry: The iPod tab shows up in iTunes 7 if you do not have an iPod connected. In previous versions of iTunes, the iPod tab might have appeared, although limited in the options available to set. Connect your iPod to your computer, then check for the iPod preferences.
Hey people!
I also have the exact problem with uploading/syncing photos to my nano. I’ve downloaded itunes 7 few days ago and as soon as I connected nano to the PC, itunes gave me that “the ipod “ipod” cannot be updated, the required folder cannot be found”. this is already a nightmare message, because if i click on anything under the photos tab , itunes crash. i’ve tried many possible ways/solutions, but nothing works. i just wanted to update one of my nano’s playlists for tomorrow… otherwise, itunes 7 work wery well and they look nice…. someone, anyone, please help us!!
Hi all, I have the same prob with iTunes 7.0.1 - there is no ipod tab and the “required folder cannot be found” error.. I have reset my ipod completely and i think this might have caused the problem (i.e. deleted a folder on the ipod that photo’s uses)… any ideas??
Hi all, I kind of have the same problem with Jon and Doug, except it does find the folder and lists the number of photos. The thing is when it starts to sync, the number of photos go from how ever many pics I have to zero. My nano flashes instead of having the light stay on when its being updated and then I get a pop up saying that “No photos were copied to the iPod because there is not enough free space on the iPod to hold your photos and albums.” I made sure I had like 10mb of free space and my pics were only like 2mb. Somebody help PLEASE!!
Hi, I have the same problem as Sherry, but my sister says I have the newest version of iTunes. But I still don’t have an iPod tab. Even when I plug my iPod in, it doesn’t show up.
my ipod says i can put songs on it but wen i ty it doesnt let e can you help.
I have the same problem as mdp555, I have only about 20gb filled on my 30gb ipod, and suddenly now when I try to sync, it says “No photos were copied to the iPod “Steve” because there is not enough free space on the iPod to hold your photos and albums.”
And in the Summer view, it shows about 9gb of “other” data. What’s going on!? is it this ipod virus I’ve heard so much about? Can somebody please help?
How do I put pictures in my iPod nano (2GB)?
hey mark i want to know how to put pictures on my 30GB ipod without having a mac computer? please help i have been tryin to do this for months
Dude, that was a great help. I can FINALLY get photos on my ipod. Thanx!!!
Ok, now I have a new problem… I finally fixed my ipod and then it was updating. I got up to get a snack and the cord had somehow gotten wrapped around my arm so when I got up it disconnected my ipod while it said, “Do not disconnect” Then I got a weird message on the screen of my ipod and now it won’t even turn on or connect with my computer. Well, it connects but my computer doesn’t really notice… Is there a way to reset my ipod or something because if there is I don’t know what it is.
@Emma: I’m glad you were able to figure out the photo thing with your iPod. As for having accidentally disconnected your iPod, you can reset your iPod with a special button combination. Follow the directions on Apple’s support page. If that doesn’t work, then you might have broken the dock connector of your iPod or cable, or the USB port on your computer. You can try another dock cable to test out the iPod and USB port. Otherwise, head to your nearest Apple Store and have a “Genius” check it out.
@everyone else with a photo problem: Please read the other comments. I haven’t had the chance to thoroughly investigate all of the issues that have been presented here, but some were addressed by other readers. If your specific problem has not been addressed here, I’m sorry.
Hey everyone will on the ipod pad it dosen’t have a folder that says photo or anything like that.
When I go to iTunes, edit, preferences…there is no iPod tab. How can I put pictures on my new nano without this tab? Can I?
Edited to add that I have the newest version of iTunes, the newest firmware for the iPod and have uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes twice. I have pictures on my iPod right now, I just don’t remember how I got them there.
Is there a way to circumvent the iPod tab?
I understand the directions of how to add photos onto my ipod, but each time i open iTunes, I do not have an ipod options button or a photos tab. Does anyone know how I can add photos?
When I go into prefrences on iTunes, the iPod tab isn’t there,instead the tab reads podcasts.So I can’t put pictures on my iPod.
can someone please tell me how to put songs on ipod manually without having to use sinc, otherwise i am going to lose all the photos i have on my ipod already.
plz help!!!
Okay, I finally got the thing to sync photos after having every problem listed above.
I first had to ‘enable disk use’. The tutorial on the apple site is out of date. There is no ‘ipod’ tab. Instead, click on the name of the ipod on the left side under “Devices” when it is connected. The tabbed view should appear in the main window. On the “Summary” tab you will see the “enable disk use” checkbox. Click it and hit the “Apply” button. It didn’t work the first time I tried it, but I exited iTunes and disconnected and reconnected my iPod, and it worked the next time I tried.
Once I had enabled disk use successfully, it easily synched photos onto the device.
One note: Every time I failed to sync, or change preferences, I noticed that the ipod would become disconnected; not physically, but the control of the iPod would come back (you’d be able to use the menus on the device itself instead of seeing the “do not disconnect” screen). After that happens, you need to disconnect the device and reconnect and restart iTunes. The first time that the device stayed connected is when it actually worked. So keep an eye out for that.
I hope this helps.
i found that my ipod didn’t have an ipod tab under the view preferences. I found that to put pictures up u need to click the ipod icon on the left side in itunes and click summary enable disk use. Now, after that you need to click on the photos tab, again in the same place your at not the view preference place, and click sync photos from and then click choose folder and find the folder or folders where you have some pictures and put them in a new folder or an existing one by dragging them to it, and then click all photos and click apply. This should do it. They wont show up in tunes but they will on ur ipod nano. That’s the ipod i have. Tips: make sure when choosing the folder you have the right one not someone else’s by mistake. The only way to take photos out is by removing them from the folder and syncing the folder again. At least that is how i roll. The ipod nano also has video capabilities. U can put videos that u recorded from ur camera onto ur ipod i think. Not sure on that yet though.
good luck,
how do you put pictures on an ipod nano?
i don’t understand
there is no tab…
This helped me a lot! i would have never figured it out. .thanks!!!!
THIS IS NO HELP I’VE SEEN THIS ON A BILLION SITES THERE IS NO IPOD TAB ON THE NEW VERSION AND I CAN’T GO BACK TO THE OLD ONE!
When i go to check the box which says ‘Enable disk use’
It doesnt work even if i exit out of itunes and disconnect the ipod it still doesnt work the second time.
It keeps coming up on my computer screen unable to process because an error occured ‘error -50′.
this seems to happen all the time when i try to do something with my ipod someone please help me with this problem im having..!!!
how do you put podcast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Mark I’m ever so slightly stuck with putting photos on my iPod you see I have connected my iPod nano to my PC and have turned on iTunes gone on edit and prefrences but there is no iPod tab i got my iPod for xmas so I assume it is new enough for photos it even has a photo option on the menu I think my iTunes may be the problem as I got the free version do I need to pay for my iTunes to get a new enough program to put photos on my iPod
To correct myself, as I may have been incorrect in one of my previous comments, iTunes 7 no longer has an iPod tab in option. When connecting your iPod to a computer with iTunes 7 installed, the iPod will appear as a new device in the source list. When you select the iPod, the various options will be available under the appropriate tab on the right side of the screen.
I hope that helps a little bit. If not, leave another message.
hi! So basically the whole photos tab on my ipod has gone haywire…every time I click it it says that itunes has to shut down because of an error. I restarted my computer and updated my ipod software but nothing has changed. Please please help this is extremely frusterating! Thank you.
It doesnt
Where is the source list. Sorry about all the questions I’m not good at computers and I don’t have a clue how to do anything
@Jon: The source list is the left pane of iTunes, where you find your music library, you playlists, and the iTunes Music Store. When you put a CD into your computer, or when you connect an iPod to your computer, a new section called Devices should show up, with the CD or iPod under it.
how do u put videos on ur video ipod? do u know? i hav videos on my itunes and they’re on my ipod but all i get is the audio and no video.
ok i enabled the disk use like you said but it keeps saying an unknown error occured (-50) and i tried it the second time but it still wont do it
I have an ipod nano but i cannot put pictures on it because on itunes there is no “photos” tab to open. On my nano it says photos so why doesnt it say photos on itunes?