Music Syncing

podkit syncs music tracks from your collections to your iPod. It handles format conversion automatically — lossless files are transcoded, compatible lossy files are copied directly.

Supported Audio Formats

Format	Extensions	What Happens
FLAC	.flac	Transcoded to AAC (or ALAC)
WAV	.wav	Transcoded to AAC (or ALAC)
AIFF	.aiff, .aif	Transcoded to AAC (or ALAC)
ALAC	.m4a	Copied directly (Apple Lossless)
MP3	.mp3	Copied directly
AAC	.m4a	Copied directly
OGG Vorbis	.ogg	Transcoded to AAC (lossy-to-lossy warning)
Opus	.opus	Transcoded to AAC (lossy-to-lossy warning)

See Audio Transcoding for quality presets and encoder details.

Metadata

podkit preserves all standard metadata through syncing and transcoding:

• Core fields: Title, artist, album, album artist
• Track info: Track number, disc number, year, genre, composer
• Technical info: Duration, bitrate, sample rate
• Album artwork: Embedded artwork is synced to the iPod

Track Matching

podkit matches tracks by artist + album + title. This means:

• Renaming files doesn’t cause duplicates
• Changing metadata (e.g., fixing a typo in the artist name) triggers an update
• Re-encoding a file at a different quality is detected as unchanged if metadata matches

Supported Content Types

Content Type	Supported	Notes
Music	Yes	Full support — the primary use case
Podcasts	Not yet	Planned for a future release
Audiobooks	Not yet	Planned for a future release
Music Videos	Not yet	Planned for a future release

Want podcast, audiobook, or music video support?

These content types are on the roadmap. Vote and comment on the discussions to help us prioritise: Podcasts, Audiobooks, Music Videos.

Syncing Commands

# Sync all music collections
podkit sync music

# Sync a specific collection
podkit sync music -c main

# Preview changes
podkit sync music --dry-run

# Remove tracks no longer in source
podkit sync music --delete

# Override quality for this sync
podkit sync music --quality medium

Listing Music

See what’s on your iPod or in your collections:

# Music on your iPod (shows stats by default)
podkit device music

# List all tracks
podkit device music --tracks

# List albums (compilation albums are marked)
podkit device music --albums

# Custom fields
podkit device music --tracks --fields "title,artist,album,compilation"

# Music in a collection
podkit collection music

# Output as JSON
podkit device music --format json

See Display Fields for all available fields.

See Also

• Syncing Overview — How syncing works
• Audio Transcoding — Quality presets and encoder options
• Directory Source — Local filesystem collections
• Subsonic Source — Streaming from Navidrome and others