Anyone have experience moving files from an iPad to a Mac?

Question

Level 1

27 points

Anyone have experience moving files from an iPad to a Mac?

Dear Folks,

I need a way to transfer files from my iPad to my Mac, to deal with the content (music and videos right now, but probably other types of files in the future) that iTunes doesn't back up. I've come across two programs that supposedly will let me mount an iPad on the Mac desktop and/or allow me to transfer files from it to my Mac. Deggie and dwb also know of several and have kindly mentioned them. So, I'm considering:

IMToo Podworks for Mac ( http://www.imtoopodworks.com/pod-works-mac.html)
Air Sharing HD ( http://avatron.com/apps/air-sharing-hd/)
Senuti ( http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/)
Yamipod ( http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/)
iRip ( http://thelittleappfactory.com/irip/)

Does anyone reading this have an opinion on (or experience with) how well any of these work?

Free vs fee isn't an issue for me, how well it functions is.

Thanks!

pax / Ctein

2.2GHz 15" MacBookPro+4GB RAM+320 GB HD & '333' Lombard w/PowerLogix 500 MHz G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11), also, a 27" quad-core i5 iMac and a 64GB 3G iPad

Posted on Jul 22, 2010 12:01 PM

Reply

Answer 1

finniii

Level 2

352 points

Jul 22, 2010 2:26 PM in response to (none) Ctein

I'm curious as to what music/video files you're able to add to your iPad that iTunes won't back up? When you buy from the iTunes Store or the App Store from your iPad, purchases are backed up to your computer's iTunes when you sync. How have you acquired new items?? And how do you get them to play on your iPad?

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Answer 2

micp

Level 3

650 points

Jul 22, 2010 2:41 PM in response to (none) Ctein

I can tell you with certainty that for documents of any kind "GoodReader" is an excellent app. It will let you connect to your mac via wi-fi. It mounts it as an external drive and you can create folders and drag files to the folders.

I haven't tried dragging any movies or music but there wouldn't be anything to stop you from doing so. There is also a file management component to the app that lets you choose an "Open with ... " type of dialog and open a file with pages if it is a .doc file, or GoodReader can open pdf, doc, xls and many other doc types.

Very happy with this .99 cent app. I agree with the other question though. If I rip a dvd, I use handbrake to convert to mp4 and add to my iTunes - then sync as per normal.

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Answer 3

(none) Ctein Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 22, 2010 6:59 PM in response to finniii

Dear finnii,

If you choose the 'manual sync' option in iTunes, you can drag and drop iPad-compatible content onto the iPad icon in the left column of the iTunes window and have it copied over their directly, without loading it into an iTunes library.

Folks who are using the iPad as a glorified iPod are not likely to be doing this, and I have no quarrel with them. But I'm not in that camp-- the iPad, for me, is a more generally-useful standalone computer. (That happens to be true for most of the folks I hang out with, but really, that's not the issue.)

pax / Ctein

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Answer 4

(none) Ctein Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 22, 2010 7:16 PM in response to micp

Dear Micp,

Thank you-- I'll add that to the list of products I should investigate.

pax / Ctein

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Answer 5

Jul 22, 2010 7:39 PM in response to (none) Ctein

I use both GoodReader and FileBrowser. You can move up to 1080p videos to the iPad and play them. You can also move/play Flip videos to the iPad. The iPad doesn't support 1080p and Flip videos natively. Beats having to convert them.

FileBrowser came out with a big update yesterday. They increased the speed for transferring file. I now get 20 mb/ps. Fast enough to stream videos from a desktop computer to the iPad. I think it more stable than Air video for streaming. It can do the same thing with videos and more compared to GoodReader. You don't have to have an app on the desktop computer to transfer files to and from the ipad, it's an easy setup.There so much that this app can do you should check it out in the app store.

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Answer 6

(none) Ctein Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 22, 2010 10:15 PM in response to David M Brewer

Dear David,

Not clear to me from reading the description in the store: will FileBrowser let me transfer files from the iPad to the Mac? The feature list concentrates on talking about reading files that are on the Mac, but I need to go the other way.

Thanks!

pax / Ctein

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Answer 7

Jul 23, 2010 2:27 AM in response to (none) Ctein

Also look at iFiles and the excellent Dropbox (free).
iFiles shows the iPad as a device in Finder and you can drag and drop anything.
Dropbox is an excellent free Cloud service that syncs to all your desktops and mobile devices. It appears in your 'Documents' as a folder, and again, you can drag and drop anything to it.

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