PodFlick

Drag & drop videos onto your classic iPod (5G/5.5G) — no iTunes.

PodFlick converts any video to the iPod Video spec (H.264 baseline ≤640×480 ≤1.5 Mbps + AAC) via ffmpeg and writes it directly into the device's iTunesDB, using surgical in-place edits proven against real hardware. Works with both Mac-formatted (HFS+) and Windows-formatted (FAT32, incl. Rockbox dual-boot) iPods.

Install

⬇ Download PodFlick.dmg (always the latest) — open it and drag PodFlick into Applications. That's the whole install: the app is signed and notarized (it opens with no "unidentified developer" warning) and ffmpeg is bundled, so no brew install is needed.

Requirements: Apple Silicon (arm64), macOS 14+, and an iPod Video 5G/5.5G mounted as a disk. (Moving the app into /Applications also registers the Finder Transfer to iPod service — see below.)

A specific version or a plain .zip is on the releases page.

Status

PodFlick 1.0 is released — see the changelog. The iTunesDB engine is proven end-to-end on real hardware; the Python reference implementation + golden fixtures are in reference/ and the format spec is in docs/itunesdb-format.md.

Build from source

For contributors, or a dev build. A source build shells out to an ffmpeg on your PATH (rather than the bundled one); producing a self-contained, notarized release is documented in docs/bundling-ffmpeg.md.

brew install xcodegen ffmpeg
cp Signing.xcconfig.template Signing.local.xcconfig   # set DEVELOPMENT_TEAM
xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -project PodFlick.xcodeproj -scheme PodFlick build

Build requirements: macOS 14+, Xcode 15+, ffmpeg on PATH.

Background transfer (Finder service + URL scheme)

Besides the main window, PodFlick can take a video without you opening the app first:

• Finder — right-click a video → Services → Transfer to iPod.
• Shortcuts / Automator — open a podflick://transfer?path=/abs/clip.mp4 URL (repeat &path= for several files).

Either way the app converts and writes in the background: no window, just a menu-bar item showing progress and an Eject action, plus a completion notification.

The Finder "Transfer to iPod" item only appears when PodFlick.app lives in /Applications. Running a copy straight from the build folder works when invoked directly (e.g. via NSPerformService), but Finder won't surface the Services menu item for it. After the first copy into /Applications, launch the app once (and, if needed, /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs -flush) so macOS registers the service.

On macOS 26 (Tahoe) you must also enable the service once. Even when it's registered, macOS ships the toggle off, so the menu item stays hidden until you tick it: System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts… → Services → Files and Folders → Transfer to iPod. (No toggle needed for the podflick:// URL scheme.)

Full hardware smoke steps: docs/smoke-service-transfer.md.

Known issues & limitations

These are device- and platform-level behaviors PodFlick can't change, plus a couple of troubleshooting notes. None of them are bugs in the transfer itself.

• A brand-new video can play black on its first open. A just-transferred clip may show a black screen on its very first launch — no response to buttons for ~10–15 s, then it drops back to the menu. Play it a second time and it works normally (both 320×240 and 640×480). This is a pre-existing iPod firmware quirk (first-open indexing/thumbnailing) seen on both 5G and 5.5G — it happens with videos made by other tools too, not just PodFlick.

• Model / Firmware / Serial can show blank in the app. iPods that have been restored or set up for Rockbox often have an empty (0-byte) Device/SysInfo, so those header fields stay blank. Format and capacity still display. This reflects the device, not a PodFlick problem.

• Play PodFlick's videos from the stock Apple firmware. Clips are encoded for the classic firmware's hardware decoder. On a Rockbox dual-boot iPod, browsing and music work under Rockbox, but boot into the original Apple firmware to watch the transferred video.

• Platform support is narrow. Apple Silicon (arm64) and macOS 14+ only — Intel Macs aren't supported — and the target device is an iPod Video 5G/5.5G.

• If the iPod keeps mounting and unmounting (flapping), try a different USB cable before anything else. A device that mounts for a second, disconnects, and repeats is almost always a bad cable or contact, not PodFlick.

• No Finder "Transfer to iPod" item? It only appears once PodFlick.app lives in /Applications — see Background transfer.

License

PodFlick's own code is released under the MIT License.

ffmpeg. PodFlick shells out to ffmpeg/ffprobe as separate child processes — it never links them in, so its own source stays MIT either way:

• Source checkouts / Homebrew dev builds do not bundle ffmpeg; they use an ffmpeg you install yourself (brew install ffmpeg), whose license stays with your copy.
• Notarized release builds bundle an LGPL v2.1 ffmpeg/ffprobe (built with no GPL or non-free components). The compliance package — license text, the exact source revision, the build/configure line, and a written offer for the corresponding source — is in licenses/ffmpeg/.

The iTunesDB read/write layer is an independent, byte-level reverse engineering of the on-device format (see docs/itunesdb-format.md); no third-party database library is used or derived from.

Trademarks

"iPod" and "iTunes" are trademarks of Apple Inc. PodFlick refers to them only to describe the hardware it works with (nominative use) and ships none of Apple's artwork or icons. PodFlick is an independent, open-source project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. The same notice appears in the app's About panel.