Python script for building the Track and Playlist database for the newer gen iPod Shuffle. Forked from the shuffle-db-ng project
Just put your audio files into the mass storage of your iPod and shuffle.py will do the rest.
$ ./ipod-shuffle-4g.py --help
usage: ipod-shuffle-4g.py [-h] [-t] [-p] [-u] [-g TRACK_GAIN]
[-d [AUTO_DIR_PLAYLISTS]] [-i [ID3_TEMPLATE]] [-v]
path
Python script for building the Track and Playlist database for the newer gen
iPod Shuffle. Version 1.4
positional arguments:
path Path to the iPod's root directory
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-t, --track-voiceover
Enable track voiceover feature
-p, --playlist-voiceover
Enable playlist voiceover feature
-u, --rename-unicode Rename files causing unicode errors, will do minimal
required renaming
-g TRACK_GAIN, --track-gain TRACK_GAIN
Specify volume gain (0-99) for all tracks; 0 (default)
means no gain and is usually fine; e.g. 60 is very
loud even on minimal player volume
-d [AUTO_DIR_PLAYLISTS], --auto-dir-playlists [AUTO_DIR_PLAYLISTS]
Generate automatic playlists for each folder
recursively inside "iPod_Control/Music/". You can
optionally limit the depth: 0=root, 1=artist, 2=album,
n=subfoldername, default=-1 (No Limit).
-i [ID3_TEMPLATE], --auto-id3-playlists [ID3_TEMPLATE]
Generate automatic playlists based on the id3 tags of
any music added to the iPod. You can optionally
specify a template string based on which id3 tags are
used to generate playlists. For eg. '{artist} -
{album}' will use the pair of artist and album to
group tracks under one playlist. Similarly '{genre}'
will group tracks based on their genre tag. Default
template used is '{artist}'
-v, --verbose Show verbose output of database generation.
This script requires python 3, ffmpeg, and the following packages:
pip install mutagen plumbum unidecode gTTS
Instead of gTTS and ffmpeg, one of these voiceover options may be used instead:
- eSpeak
- PicoSpeaker
- RHVoice (master branch, 3e31edced402a08771d2c48c73213982cbe9333e) -- (Russian files only)
- SoX -- (Russian files)
To avoid that linux moves deleted files into trash you can create an empty file .Trash-1000.
This forces linux to delete the files permanently instead of moving them to the trash.
Of course you can also use shift + delete to permanently delete files without this trick.
The file can be found in the extras folder.
(#11) The shuffle is short on storage, and you might want to squeeze in more of your collection by sacrificing some bitrate off your files. In rarer cases, you might also possess music in formats not supported by your iPod. Although ffmpeg can handle almost all your needs, if you are looking for a friendly alternative, try Soundconverter.
As described in the blog post you can use Rhythmbox to sync your personal music library to your iPod but still make use of the additional features this script provides (such as voiceover).
Simply place a file called .is_audio_player into the root directory of your iPod and add the following content:
name="Name's IPOD"
audio_folders=iPod_Control/Music/
The file can be found in the extras folder.
Now disable the iPod plugin of Rhythmbox and enable the MTP plugin instead. You can use Rhythmbox now to generate playlists and sync them to your iPod. The script will recognize the .pls playlists and generate a proper iTunesSD file.
- Creating playlists with names like
K.I.Z.will fail, because the FAT Filesystem does not support a dot.at the end of a directory/file. - Sometimes bad ID3 tags can also cause corrupted playlists.
In all cases you can try to update Rhythmbox to the latest version, sync again or fix the wrong filenames yourself.
If you want to use this script on different computers it makes sense to simply copy the script into the iPod's root directory.
(#41) If you formatted your iPod wrong and lost all data you can still recover it. It is important to not use MBR/GPT. You need to directly create a Fat16 Filesystem:
sudo mkfs.vfat -I -F 16 -n IPOD /dev/sdXRun this script to generate the new database. All missing sound files should be regenerated by the iPod on next use. Your iPod should work and play music again now.
- shuffle3db specification
- Using shuffle.py and Rhythmbox for easy syncing of playlists and songs
- gtkpod
- German Ubuntu iPod tutorial
- iPod management apps
The original shuffle3db website went offline. This repository contains a copy of the information inside the docs folder.
Original data can be found via wayback machine.
1.4 Release (27.08.2016)
* Catch "no space left" error #30
* Renamed --voiceover to --track-voiceover
* Added optional --verbose output
* Renamed script from shuffle.py to ipod-shuffle-4g.py
* Added files to `extras` folder
* Ignore hidden filenames
* Do not force playlist voiceover with auto playlists
* Added shortcut parameters (-p, -t, -d, etc.)
* Fix UnicodeEncodeError for non-ascii playlist names (#35)
1.3 Release (08.06.2016)
* Directory based auto playlist building (--auto-dir-playlists) (#13)
* ID3 tags based auto playlist building (--auto-id3-playlists)
* Added short program description
* Fix hyphen in filename #4
* Fixed mutagen bug #5
* Voiceover disabled by default #26 (Playlist voiceover enabled with auto playlist generation)
* Differentiate track and playlist voiceover #26
1.2 Release (04.02.2016)
* Additional fixes from NicoHood
* Fixed "All Songs" and "Playlist N" sounds when voiceover is disabled #17
* Better handle broken playlist paths #16
* Skip existing voiceover files with the same name (e.g. "Track 1.mp3")
* Only use voiceover if dependencies are installed
* Added Path help entry
* Made help message lower case
* Improved Readme
* Improved docs
* Added MIT License
* Added this changelog
1.1 Release (11.10.2013 - 23.01.2016)
* Fixes from nims11 fork
* Option to disable voiceover
* Initialize the iPod Directory tree
* Using the --rename-unicode flag
filenames with strange characters and different language are renamed
which avoids the script to crash with a Unicode Error
* Other small fixes
1.0 Release (15.08.2012 - 17.10.2012)
* Original release by ikelos