Step 1 - Retrieve your iPods serial number. You’re going to need it for Step 2.  It’s listed on the side of the original packaging or maybe you wrote it down.   If you threw away the original package and never wrote it down, don’t worry you can usually find the iPod’s serial number in iTunes on your computer.  Start here at Finding Your Stolen iPod’s Serial Number in iTunes.

Step 2 – Report it stolen to the police. Now that you have the stolen iPod’s serial number, go to your nearest police station and make out a stolen property report.   This is a must.   Give them the serial number.  Make sure to list if there are any special engravings on the iPod or if it contains specific photographs, anything that will help identify it as yours.  You will then be given a case number.   Keep this with you because you will need it again.   The police will then enter the serial number of the stolen iPod in the Stolen Property System of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).   All police agencies are tied into this system.   If another agency recovers your iPod and runs the serial number, the Stolen Property System will tell them your case number and the name of the agency that took the original stolen report.  Generally, all countries have a similar system.

Step 3 – List your stolen iPod with its serial number on Stolen911.com. This is where you will find thousands of other stolen iPods listed from throughout the county and around the world.   By listing your stolen iPod on Stolen911.com you have created an Internet fingerprint that anyone with you serial number can find out that it belongs to you.  All someone has to do is enter your stolen iPod’s serial number in a search engine like Google and it will lead him or her to your listing on Stolen911.com.  It’s as simple as placing an online classified ad and it’s free.   You can leave as much or as little contact information as you want.   The database is open to everyone so you may decide to leave just basic contact information or you can use Stolen911’s message system if you don’t want to make you email or contact number public.  You can also leave the contact information for the police department that that you reported the iPod stolen to if you prefer.

Step 4 – Check local flea markets, swap meets, pawnshops and monitor online sales in you area like craigslist and eBay. Most cities and counties have certain guidelines for pawnshops.   The pawnshop must usually report the serial numbers of recently acquired electronics to the local police.  They do not want to buy stolen property and then find out later they have to give it up.   If you do locate you stolen iPod this way, contact the police for that jurisdiction.   Give them your original case number and let them conduct their investigation.   They will collect your property and safely return it back to you.

The sad reality is that most stolen iPods do not get recovered and generally Apple is not going to help.   But by following the steps listed above, you do increase your chances that the police or a Good Samaritan will return you stolen iPod to you.

Last step – You are probably going to buy another iPod. Next time using these tips, Protect your iPod from Theft, will insure you next iPod will be much harder to steal.

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iTunes 9, in Windows 7, Vista, & XP – Run a diagnostic

• Choose Help
• Run Diagnostics
• check iPhone/iPod connectivity tests and/or  iPhone/ipod touch sync test.
• Hit the Next button as directed.  It will tell you to connect your iPod but just click next to run the tests.
• Finally you will see a screen, iTunes Diagnostics Complete.
• Scroll to the buttom and you will see the most recent device not currently connected.  It will show you the serial number of your latest iPod device.

Now if you have several iPod devices, this technique might not allow you to see all of them.   If you have another way to retrieve all the past connected devices in Windows 7, please feel free to share them below.

Submitted by Sarah on 1/25/2010  – Thanks Sarah

I’ve tried the above and it didn’t work for me. I have a Sony Vaio running Vista. I called Apple Support and they told me to do the following, which did work:

Go into iTunes

Press Control and Click on Help

While holding the Control Key, Select About iTunes from the drop-down menu

A window will pop up and the registration number will be at the bottom – Hit Space Bar to Pause the scrolling on your number

It worked for me – hopefully it works for you too! Be sure to call Apple at 1-800-676-2775 to file a report so that whoever stole it can’t use it!

iTunes 9 – Lets try the simple one first

As long as your iPod or iPhone has been connected to your Mac iTunes library before, this should work for the last connected devices.

• Click on iTunes> About iTunes.
• As the iTunes version information scrolls, you will the see the serial number of the last connected iPod as well as the last connected iPhone’s serial number and IMEI.
• Hold down the Space bar to pause the scrolling.
• Hold down the Option key  to reverse the scrolling.

iTunes 9, again – Now try this to get a list of all backed up devices and serial numbers.

In our fist try we only got to see the serial number of last devices connected.  If your iTunes manages several iPhones or iPods you may need to try something else.

• Open iTunes 9 and click on “Preferences”.
• A window will then pop up with several choices and icons listed across the top.  Click on “Devices”.  You should see a list of “Device Backups” last performed by iTunes.
• Place you cursor over the name of the device, like a listed iPhone.  After a brief second, a yellow window will appear.
• In the case of an iPhone this window will display the phone number, the IMEI and the serial number.  If you have more that one iPhone, the information for each one will be listed.

I tried the above method on my older 60 gig video iPod, but it did not list the device as a recent backup in iTunes 9. (Even though I had just completed one.)

In the Mac OS – If all else fails, this will work.

Using this method you can retrieve all of your past connected iPhones and iPods.  Its just a little harder.

• Open Finder and click on you Main Drive.
• Choose Users
• Choose your user name.  (or whatever you call yourself)
• Choose the Library folder
• Choose the Preferences folder
• Choose and open the “com.apple.ipod.plist” file

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

iPod&*$%^#>[YM740ERCYXX#$^33A«ùnƒˆ#^U1.1.2Ú&$@*
!”##^*$3A«¡ì LaØ[YM616KDHSZB&%$1€((&%$$U1.3.1DÄqø*^-2EXq~’¥¸

I have highlighted the serial numbers in blue.

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

Example: To find my stolen Pioneer DJM-600K Mixer,
I would enter: Pioneer DJM-600k and then Pioneer DJM600k.

Give it a try. Crooks will attempt to sell stolen property in other areas to avoid being caught by the original owners.

The drama of the iPhone theft and recovery was documented on the victims website The Intermittent Kevin.   Great job guys.  Next time, please be careful.

Cali Lewis of Geek Brief TV tells a great version of the story. Check out the video below.

Check out the poll below.Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Gee, I wonder which answer is going to get the most votes?

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.

The RSS feed of Stolen iPods is now available from Stolen911.com.  Since October 2007, Stolen911.com allows victims of iPod theft to post information about their stolen iPods.   Over 800 Stolen iPods have been registered with the stolen property website.  This feed is now available for publication.  Check it out below…

The list of stolen iPods posted at Stolen911.com continues to grow.  Victims of theft have posted over 160 stolen iPods since October.   Check out the video…