Description

Allows iPod/iPhone syncing via iTunes. Synchronizes tracks, playlists, play counts, skip counts, ratings and ID3 tag information from MB to iDevices.

Installation

Extract content of archive to plugins subfolder of MB installation folder (e.g. to "c:\program files\musicbee\plugins").

Setting up iTunes

• Disable Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Keep iTunes Media folder organized.
• Disable Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.
• Disable Edit->Preferences->Devices->Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically.
• Clear iTunes music library before using plugin.

Untick all the options under device preferences -

• Sync with this iPhone over Wifi
• Sync only checked songs and videos
• Prefer standard definition videos
• Convert Higher bitrate songs
• Manually manage Music and Videos
• Disk use (not sure if this one matters)

Under device settings, tick music and set to sync the entire music library. Untick all other media types

How to use plugin

Click "Tools> Turn iPod & iPhone Driver on" menu item. You will be shown a settings screen where you can set what you want to sync and save as defaults.

1. Refresh Metadata - iTunes will update it's info directly from the ID3 file tags for any songs that have previously been synced. This substantially adds to the sync time on large libraries. Consider opening iTunes and deleting the songs you have edited and let them get added again on the next sync. (careful not to delete play counts).
2. Sync album and track ratings from MB to iTunes - Overwrites iTunes ratings with MB. If all is selected, all will be overwritten, if last played is selected, only songs with a last played date in MB greater than iTunes will be overwritten.
3. Sync album and track ratings from iTunes to MB - Does the reverse of the above.
4. Sync play counts from iTunes - Increment any play counts in iTunes to MB and reset iTunes play count to zero.
5. Sync skip counts from iTunes - Same as play counts.

Note - If options 2 and 3 are both selected, option 2 occurs first.

After clicking ok, a waiting form will display, plugin your device or work offline.. Offline allows you to sync to iTunes separately and you can sync to your device using iTunes later. If you are syncing play/skip counts it would be better to plug in your device.

I had trouble testing on a new install so for first time runs I would suggest clicking "work offline", close MB and restart to make sure default options saved ok and will be applied properly at sync time.

Eventually the waiting window will disappear and a device icon will display on the top right of MB. I only used the iPod and iPhone Device and ignored the actual device. The device will sync with iTunes and update any play counts to iTunes.

Set your sync settings in MusicBee and click synchronize.

NOTE 1: The 2 way sync checkbox is greyed out in MusicBee, this plugin bypasses that setting and follows the sync settings you ticked at launch. It obeys the other settings in MusicBee like selected playlists, deleting missing files etc...
NOTE 2: The progress notifications don't work properly. I think that is an MB issue.

NOTE 3: You can assign a hotkey or toolbar button to "iPod & iPhone Driver: Turn on" command.

NOTE 4: The initial sync will take quite a while as adding songs to iTunes is slow. Keeping iTunes in the foreground may speed this up.

NOTE 5:
Plugin makes copy of track if track is format-converted due to device settings or if track artwork wasn't embedded (iDevices support only embedded artworks). Track copies are stored in "AppData\iPod & iPhone Driver" folder. Track copy is automatically deleted if track is no longer contained in device media library.
The library should be organised depending if you want to send artwork or not . Yes - make sure all songs are imbedded, no - make sure no songs are imbedded. Otherwise you may lose a lot of storage to encoding.

Uninstallation

Go to 'Edit> Preferences> Plugins'. Click 'Uninstall'. Plugin will delete all automatically created files (e.g. settings), but you need to exit MB and manually delete all files that were included in plugin .zip.

Limitations and known issues

• Podcasts, audiobooks and videos are always added to "Music" category of device media library (this hardly will be ever fixed due to bug in iTunes API). In testing videos said they failed to copy but did get synced to iTunes.
• You can use several iPods/iPhones with MusicBee, but will share the same media library.
• You can synchronize iPod/iPhone but you cant manually add/delete tracks to/from device.

License

Do all you want with plugin binary and source code at your own risk.

Source - https://www.mediafire.com/file/r7pmnarbr7oc6ki/MB_iPod_%2526_iPhone_Driver_2.0_Source.zip/file

Plugin status

Latest version of iTunes that fully works 12.5.3.16

See forum thread about other version support.