Find iPod's Serial Number (no iTunes backup required!)

After a recent break-in/theft, I had an iPod Touch stolen from my apartment.  Unfortunately, it was locked with a passcode, making trying to find it with Apple's "Find My iPhone" app nearly impossible as it needs WiFi to find itself.  Anyhow, I thought it would be nice to at least be able to tell the police a serial number in the astronomically low chance they find the scumbag culprit.  Problem: I did not know the serial number, and as it was my wife's, I did not have a backup on my computer (it was on hers, which was also stolen).  BUT!!! I had connected it to my computer before for charging and such, and despite iTunes's lim ited memory, the information lives on in your computer.

Finding the Serial Number Without iTunes

Your Mac keeps a record of all iPods it connects to.  I mean, it must to remember which ones to automatically sync and which ones not to, right?  The file can be found at:

Macintosh HD > Users -> [your user name] -> Library -> Preferences -> com.apple.iPod.plist

If you open the file in TextEdit or something it might get messy.  Just do the quick view by pressing spacebar and you should see lots of stuff that looks like this:

< key > SomeKey < /key > 

< string > Cool Technical Jargony Thing < /string > 

Look for the line after "< key > Serial Number < /key > ", and it should look like this:

< string > [your serial number here] < /string >

example:  < string > G8312CO150D4 < /string > 

And that, my friends, is your serial number.  There will be a separate entry for every iPod you've connected so if you own more than one, keep looking until you find the one that doesn't match the ones you have.

Not sure if this will ever actually help anyone recover a lost device, but happy hunting!

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