Finding your iPod’s serial number in iTunes 8 – The Latest Info

UPDATED JAN. 24rd 2010.  For iTunes 9 in Windows click here for the latest posts.

UPDATED JAN. 23rd 2010.  For iTunes 9 on a Mac click here for the latest posts.

Here are the latest tricks to find your iPods serial number in iTunes for both Leopard, XP & Vista.  Submitted by people who have posted here.  Please share your results or something better.

For Mac OS X Leopard – Submitted by Jim Demers on 7/18/2008.

I just tried this on 11/16/2008 and it works. I found my iPhone 3G serial number.  Jim shares his example below.  I highlighted the serial numbers in red.

Jim wrote:

Also, under the Leopard OS at least, you can look at this file to see a list of all iPods that have been connected (not just the most recent):

[hard drive]/library/preferences/com.apple.ipod.plist

Toward the end of all the gibberish, you’ll find something along the lines of this:

iPod@$%^&((>€[YM740ERCYXX33A«ùnƒˆÄU1.1.2Ú
!”#$3A«¡ì LaØ[YM616KDHSZB1€U1.3.1DÄqø-2EXq~’¥¸

The serial numbers appear just after a left bracket symbol, so the above mess translates into serial nos. YM740ERCYXX (most recent) and YM616KDHSZB (older).

The dates are supposed to be in there as well, but I don’t know how to read them.

Thanks Jim.

For Windows (I’m not sure if its for XP or Vista or maybe it works for both)

Submitted by Josie on 9/20/2008

Josie wrote:

Ok so I called Apple Care and they couldn’t do anything for me. My poor dad was sent out to Oklahoma to help the Hurrican Ike victims and then his compute, ipod, all his credit cards, dvds and clothes were stolen from his hotel room, shitty!!! But I called Apple Care like 200 times trying to get the serial number for his ipod and I also tried the diagnostics and hard drive thing, they did not work. So finally and apple guy did help me…this is an easy way to find the serial number for people with PCs.

First go to the START menu
Click RUN
Type in REGEDIT
At the top you should see MY COMPUTER
Below that is HKEY_CURRENT_USER open it
Then go down to SOFTWARE open it
Find APPLE COMPUTER INC open it
Open the IPOD tab
Last open USERREG2

and on the right side screen you will see a big long list of stuff including ipod serial no.

it sounds like a lot of work but its the easiest way I found it! Hope this helps all of you!!!

Thanks Josie.

Give them a try.  If you find something better or more specific let us know in the comments.  I will post them very quickly.  Thanks.

Tags: ipod theft, itunes 8, mac, OS leapord, stolen ipod, track stolen ipod, vista, windows, xp

Category: In Leapord, In Windows Vista, In Windows XP