Few can dispute the fact that Apple created a flawless product when it built the iPod. However, the company did omit to include one feature that still bothers me. The legally-aware developer made it so that you couldn't copy tunes from your iPod onto another computer. OK, so it means everything is above board, but it also means that if you get a new computer or your hard drive fails, you have to build up your MP3 collection all over again. Luckily, there are now several programs available that let you copy your iPod tunes to any machine, and CopyTrans is a good example of one of these.

The process of synchronising your music with CopyTrans is a simple one and you can choose to archive your collection or import it into a new iTunes library. All you need to do is connect your iPod, wait for the program to scan the device, choose your transfer settings then wait for CopyTrans to work its magic.

It does take quite a long time to copy across the music, but the operation works very well and I experienced no problems other than that it didn't reproduce all of the album art I had. The program boasts some nice features such as selective transfers, incremental back-ups, and repair to damaged iPod databases.

If you're scared of losing all your iPod data then install CopyTrans and erase your worries with ease.

Download CopyTrans 2.590 in Softonic

If you're a bookworm and you've literally got books all over the place, then why not get organised by cataloguing them all in a database.

And what better tool to do it with than Book Collector which is like the iTunes of book cataloguing. This simply but impressive program allows you to browse through your collection from the comfort of your PC enabling you to share and rediscover old titles that had since been consigned to a dusty bookshelf. You can order your books by author, title, publisher, year or cover art. The clever thing however is that you don't need to scan in any of the cover art - it downloads everything you need from a database simply by using the ISBN number. You can include personal details like purchase date, store, location, whether you've read-it as well as catalogue chapter lists, characters and book creator credits. In addition, the program links book entries to e-book or audio-book files. In addition to downloading cover art, it downloads a quick synopsis of each book which is great for writing reviews or sharing titles with a friend. The only thing lacking maybe is something to save your favourite quotes or pages in and possible a link to the publisher's site for the author's latest releases.

An excellent tool for bookworms that will help you get even more out of your book collection.

Download Book Collector 5.2.2 in Softonic

Once you get used to a certain media player you feel somehow obliged to be faithful to it, which is certainly a mistaken attitude as it prevents you from discovering great tools like J.River Media Jukebox.

If the player you've been using until now is iTunes you already know how to use Media Jukebox, because the program resembles the Apple media player both in appearance and functionality. And if not, the learning curve won't take long thanks to Media Jukebox's intuitive design.

Like I said this program looks like iTunes a lot. On the one hand I wonder if this is going beyond any legal limits - as regards plagiarism. On the other hand, it makes Media Player very familiar and easy to use. Resemblances aside, the program features just about anything you would ask for in a full featured music player: from a library manager with which to organize your music collection to an embedded player, including a tag editor, a CD ripping tool, a CD burning tool and support for online podcasts, album art cover display and handheld music device synchronization.

Media Jukebox features a sleek dark interface organized in several areas and some extra details that add a spicy taste like the different 3D effects you can apply to the album cover art, the great smart playlist creation tool or the ability to download plug-ins from the developer's site to improve or add new functions to the program.

Summing up, J. River Media Jukebox is an excellent media suite where you'll find all the tools you'll ever need to organize, manage and enjoy your favorite music.

Download J. River Media Jukebox 12.07.17 in Softonic

iTunes includes a feature which allows the user to automatically download album artwork for selected tracks but this is not a feature which ever feels like it has been properly implemented. At various times, without warning, users experience the error 609: basically that for some reason, iTunes couldn't download what the user wanted. With a complete lack of assistance in the Apple support forums, the company has left the door open for yet another 3rd party fix.

The aptly named FixTunes deals with the 'artwork not found' error, as well as fixing pretty much any tagging error that's afflicting your music library. Simply start-up iTunes and FixTunes, select the tracks you want to find artwork or information for (or just select your whole library) and set FixTunes to work, downloading all the required info with the minimum of fuss. Check the data and then click 'Fix' to apply it to your library.

FixTunes is particularly useful because it does away with the hassle and work which other 'simple' tag-fixing programs always seem to entail. Using a database of over 4 million songs, along with a clever percentage-based accuracy measure, it will only fix what it's certain about, leaving you to decide for anything below a certain threshold. In testing, we found zero false-positives and a reassuring number of 'not identifieds' which just needed a small change to the detected data, and all without typing a word.

An essential, easy to use tool for anyone looking to fix the artwork or tags in a large iTunes library.

Download FixTunes 4.6 in Softonic

Originally MyTunes was developed to work with iTunes version 4.1 to 4.7, but no further releases were put out to match the seemingly never ending iTunes revisions. Thankfully, despite its lack of updates, this unique tool is still kicking strong with the latest version of iTunes. Softonic has dug up some interesting information that illustrates just how fragile and unforgiving the software development process can sometimes be.

Quite some time back, MyTunes suffered one of those cruel twists of fate that rear their head from time to time, effectively bringing development on this popular utility to an abrupt halt, CNET News.com reports"the popular software has all but vanished from the Net, and its programmer's sites have gone dark. But this time, it's not the doing of an angry record industry or a conflict-averse Apple. Trinity College sophomore Bill Zeller, who wrote the program in less than two weeks of off-time coding last year, says he simply lost the source code in a catastrophic computer crash." Zeller said: "I was about to release the second version, when I lost everything. I may put it back online, but there won't be any updates. I don't want to rewrite it."

Download MyTunes Redux 1.0 in Softonic

Why let the artists have all the fun? Now you can create your own CD/DVD labels and CD jewel cases with the ultimate in ease and flexibility!

If you are sick of guessing what songs are on what CD, get the label maker that automatically puts your track list on your CD/DVD label. Chock full of custom art for holidays and special occasions like Christmas, Valentines, birthdays, vacations, weddings and more.

Automatically imports your track information from Acoustica MP3 CD Burner, iTunes, WinAmp, Easy CD Creator or any other popular play list or previously burnt CD! Print on standard paper or stock sticker labels and CD jewel case templates.

Download Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker 3.15 in Softonic

It's an incredible oversight by Apple that iTunes does not import album covers. iTunes Art Importer comes to the rescue however by allowing you to have all your favourite album covers alongside your favourite tunes - and it looks great.

The program is connected to the Amazon database and adds the album cover of the song that is playing at any one time. It doesn't always offer you the right album unfortunately although it prompts you to select one from a list of probable candidates. You can configure the program to automatically choose the one that it thinks is correct although you may end up with Billy Joel instead of Billy Ocean.

When you start up the Importer, iTunes will also start up if it's not already running. The best way to use the Importer is to select all the tracks for a single album in iTunes and click the search button in the Importer (denoted by the magnifying glass). It will then query Amazon.com for albums that match. If multiple albums are found, the best match will be automatically selected. When the correct album is selected and the album art is displayed on the left, simply click the Import button and you're done.

This is not an essential program for music lovers but it can deepen your appreciation of your collection by learning about the album cover info.

Download iTunes Art Importer 0.9.2 in Softonic

This program is a companion for iTunes. iTunes Album Browser analyses your music collection, collates the full albums that are contained within it, and displays the album covers (or spines), with various sorting and filtering capabilities to get to the music you want quickly and intuitively. It retrieves album art from Amazon automatically if required. It can also display album reviews, song lyrics and all other songs from the playing artist.

If you are a REAL music fan and want to listen to music as it was intended, as full albums with tracks in the correct order, then this is the program for you. However, it's also possible to use it as a "jukebox", to mix and match different tracks from different albums as you require. It's also possible to collate "best of" albums by artist or genre, using your own personal ratings.

Download iTunes Album Browser 2.1.37 in Softonic

If you like to listen to your music anywhere and on anything, be it an iPod, a phone or a PC, you're going to need to change your tracks to different formats. MP3Producer works in the same way as most converters, in that you select your audio files from a CD or from a folder and then select the new format and bitrate. MP3Producer converts your files fairly quickly and can handle more than one track simultaneously.

MP3Producer’s interface is divided into two windows, making it easily understandable. The left side is composed of four tabs: Track List, ID3 Tag, Filename and MP3 Settings. Depending on the tab you have selected MP3Producer will provide explanations on the right side to help you go through the conversion process. The application also offers more flexibility than other audio converters by allowing you to select a segment of a track to be modified.

Although MP3Producer does not store audio tracks as instinctively as iTunes, the program does well at organizing your music library. Once you have selected the folder to which the converted track will be saved, you can also create subfolders according to information such as artist, year or album. The process was slightly awkward but we appreciated the fact that MP3Producer went a bit farther than just converting music. The program also works with an online source, FreeDB, to obtain information from thousands of artists and albums. You can also add a tag to the converted file (copyright, private, original, or CRC error protection) if you need to protect the rights to the track.

On the downside, we were disappointed that MP3Producer only used FreeDB to extract musical information. It would be great to benefit from the bottomless wells of information that are Amazon or the iTunes music store. Also, MP3Producer doesn’t let you download cover art to enhance your music collection. Last but not least, we were surprised to see that you can not convert to MP4, a format that is reasonably popular nowadays.

Thanks to a good set of features, ever-present explanations, and a few tools to manage your music library, MP3Producer is an audio converter with that little bit more that gives it the edge over similar applications.

Download MP3Producer 2.54 in Softonic

iAlbumArt allows you to quickly and easily download album cover artwork for your entire iTunes music library. You can even update albums that are already on your iPod.

iAlbumArt works by searching Amazon's music database using the album and artist information from iTunes to locate and download the artwork. You can also manually pick the version of the art you want to save. The artwork is saved in the ID3 tag of each track as a compressed image (PNG).

iAlbumArt works and feels like iTunes. You pick the iTunes play list you want to use and iAlbumArt will show you the current artwork and allow you to download covers manually or in batch. Cover art is saved to the individual audio files. You can even update the artwork for tracks on your iPod. Just select iPod from the playlist.

Download iAlbumArt 1.8 in Softonic

iPodCopy allows you to synchronize your files between your iPod and your PC. It contains a series of powerful tools for getting more from your music, including tools for organizing your MP3s, transferring songs and searching your collection.

Features of iPodCopy:

• Copy songs or playlists from your iPod to your PC
• Backup all your music in a couple of mouse clicks
• Transfer songs and playlists from your iPod directly into iTunes. Also transfers your Album Art, Ratings, Play Count and other song data
• Search for music on your iPod. The search results can be saved to your computer or transferred into iTunes as a playlist
• Play songs off your iPod through your PC without having iTunes installed. Use iPodCopy to change your music rating

Download iPodCopy 6.5 in Softonic

Automatically download album artwork for iTunes and iPod. Image Analysis to prioritize images selection for near 100% accuracy. Automatic Mode searches and adds art without user interaction. View all tracks at once, or view by album. Unlike most Art downloader software, this one was written with ease of use in mind. Demo includes unlimited art searches and 50 album artwork transfers. Full version has no limitations.

Download iAutoArtwork 2.0 in Softonic