Passaggio
Closed beta · invite only
The Ultimate iPod Manager
Load music, video, audiobooks, and podcasts onto your iPod, fast and effortless from the moment you plug in.
What it does
Everything you need to manage your iPod. Nothing you don't.
Built for Speed
Passaggio moves your library onto your iPod as fast as the hardware allows, converting anything that needs it along the way. No waiting around.
Lossless, Automatically
Your AIFF, WAV, and FLAC files become ALAC on the way to your iPod, with no quality lost and nothing to set up. Change the profile anytime.
Fit More on Your iPod
Tight on space? Convert to MP3 or AAC at any bitrate, preset or custom, and fit far more music on your iPod. Prefer ALAC? That works too.
Crash-Proof by Design
Unplug mid-sync or lose power, and your iPod's library stays intact. Passaggio never leaves it half-written, so it can't be corrupted.
Album Art Included
Your embedded artwork travels with every track. No extra step, no missing covers.
Back Up Your Library
Pull your whole iPod library back to your computer, or just the tracks you pick. Your music is never trapped on the device.
Fast on Any Machine
Old laptop or new desktop, Passaggio uses every core you have. Big libraries convert in a fraction of the time.
Device Support
What each iPod can do today, and what's on the way.
| Model | Music | Video | Audiobooks | Podcasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPod Classic 6th & 7th gen | Supported | Supported | Soon | Soon |
| iPod Video 5th & 5.5th gen | Supported | Supported | Soon | Soon |
| iPod (4th gen) Monochrome & Photo | Supported | — | Soon | Soon |
| iPod nano 1st to 7th gen | Supported | Supported* | Soon | Soon |
| iPod mini 1st & 2nd gen | Supported | — | Soon | Soon |
| iPod (1st to 3rd gen) Needs testing | Testing | — | Soon | Soon |
* iPod nano 6th gen has no video playback. Audiobooks and podcasts are in active development across every supported model.
Frequently Asked Questions
The honest answers, not the marketing ones.
No. Passaggio works entirely with standalone files. You drag your music straight into the app, and it syncs to your iPod. It does not need or track an iTunes or Apple Music database on your computer.
It converts from any source format to MP3, AAC, or ALAC. Lossless sources like FLAC, WAV, and AIFF can go to ALAC with nothing lost. It will not re-encode lossy to lossy or lossy to lossless, apart from a few specific cases, because that only throws away quality for no reason.
The core engine already handles them well. What we are still finishing is the interface for audiobooks, podcasts, and Genius mixes. It lands during the beta and is complete for the V1.0 launch.
Those use a completely different database and communication protocol. Passaggio is built for click-wheel iPods with a disk mode. For iPod Touch and iPhone, use the native Music app or a tool like iMazing.
It is coming. Windows and macOS are supported now, and the native Linux build follows within a few weeks. We announce it on Discord first.
Passaggio is a commercial product heading toward its V1.0 launch, not an open-source project. The closed beta is free, and the most active testers earn a free lifetime key valid for all future versions. Everyone who takes part constructively gets a meaningful launch discount. Final pricing is a one-time purchase, announced before launch.
Free and open-source options exist, and some are genuinely good. Passaggio is a different bet: a native, commercial app we can invest in full time, written from scratch in Rust for speed and a polished experience on Windows, macOS, and Linux. More good choices only make the iPod scene better.
Everything runs through the Discord server. Passaggio saves a log for every sync, so bug reports with logs get priority. We read every message, though replies can take time during busy periods.
Under the Hood
How Passaggio is built, in short.
Passaggio is built from the ground up in Rust. It is not a wrapper around iTunes and it does not lean on aging third-party libraries. That is what keeps it fast and predictable across every generation of iPod.
Passaggio talks to your iPod through a driver we wrote ourselves, not a decades-old library glued on top. It is what lets us support the full range of click-wheel models and keep them stable.
Everything Passaggio needs ships inside the app. There is nothing to install alongside it and nothing to wire up in your PATH. Download it, open it, plug in your iPod.
Separate native builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux, not a web page wrapped in a window. It behaves like software that belongs on your machine.
Passaggio writes a local log for every sync. If something ever looks off, you and we can see exactly what it did, step by step.
Honest Limitations
What Passaggio doesn't do yet, or won't ever do.
The engine already handles play counts, ratings, and playlists, but the interface for importing an existing iTunes or Apple Music library is still being built. It is not in the first beta. If you have curated a library for years, this is a priority for us.
Passaggio does not restore or format an iPod yet. For a brand new device, or right after a flash mod, you still need iTunes for the very first restore. After that, Passaggio takes over and you can leave iTunes closed.
V1.0 is focused on syncing with stock iPod firmware. There is an active branch working on Rockbox compatibility, but it is not a priority for the launch.
A command line interface is on the way, but it is not part of the beta or the V1.0 launch. For now Passaggio is a desktop app you drive by hand. If you need scriptable iPod management today, this is not the tool yet.
Passaggio is closed-source, commercial software. The code is not public, but every sync writes a local log you can read, so you can always see exactly what happened on your device.
Bring your iPod into 2026.
We're opening a small closed beta. Own a couple of iPods and don't mind breaking things? Come say hi on Discord.