THEBRIX2008  Just to completely contradict the last review, I synchronised 16,000 songs from an iPod to a newly rebuilt Mac (OS X 10.6.1, iTunes 9.0.1) with only one trivial error; a Composer field was not brought across in half a dozen tracks.

There were a couple of problems, although I suspect they are down to iTunes rather than PodWorks:

1. The sync took a few attempts to get going - it froze after 20 or 30 songs the first couple of times;

2. Once the sync had completed, iTunes decided to recognise the iPod it had just received the files from as a "new iPod" and synchronised everything back to it!

I cannot fault PodWorks really; synchronising seems to be a difficult problem to crack in general and handling 16,000 files almost flawlessly is impressive. I tried a couple of similar applications, but they both froze repeatedly at the same place and could not be coaxed into continuing.  
(Version 2.9.6)

ROBK  I have used Podworks and was disappointed with it. It is okay for copying a handful of tracks at a time (e.g. one album) but I found it VERY frustrating when copying lots of tracks at a time.

If the hard disk on your iPod has suffered some damage (which is a VERY common problem with hard`disk based iPods), PodWorks will report an "Filesystem error". You must click OKAY to continue EACH time. This is insane!! Podworks should log the error and automatically continue. At the end of the copying, Podworks should report that errors occurred and offer you to look at the error log report. It does not!!

In one of the menus, you can ask Podworks to show any "transfer errors". But when you do, you do NOT see any of these "filesystem errors". This looks like a bug.

Some of the tracks that Podworks copied were also corrupt (even though they play just fine on the iPod or within Podworks). I really wish the developer had included an option to VERIFY that the transfer was good. I know that would slow down the copying (but I could live with the extra time to prevent data corruption in my iTunes).

In other words, if you are copying a handful of tracks from your iPod to iTunes, Podworks is fine (but you may want to look at FREE alternatives). If you want to copy lots of tracks (or ALL the tracks off your iPod), I would recommend you pass on Podworks. It may take you HOURS especially if you have to manually click OK for EACH "filesystem error" that Podworks encounters when reading from an iPod with a damaged hard disk (which is a common problem).  
(Version 2.9.6)

ODAYUAN  Not really support 10.4.11 PPC  
(Version 2.9.6)

BRIAN TOMBAUGH  Link doesn't work. Tries to link to version 2.9.7, but 2.9.6 is current with the listed updates. Either access the software through the author's website, or change the link in your url to: http://www.macupdate.com/download.php/10273/PodWorks_2.9.6.zip

Great software. Worked great for me when I needed it several years ago...  
(Version 2.9.6)

STAINBOY  if you're a PodWorks user and saw it stop working when you updated your iPhone or iPod Touch to the 3.0 software, never fear...the developer has a compatible version in beta that will be released shortly.  
(Version 2.9.3)

22DUKE  why does this software not automatically skip errors and continue it's work??? Does the developer really expect us to babysit the application for several hours 9 so far for 60GB of music??

It also does not seem to transfer movies well every second one creates an error message and manual intervention to continue the progress is needed :-(  
(Version 2.9.3)

DPARRY  

LDANDERSEN Just a note from the developer to let everyone know that with the release of PodWorks 2.9, PodWorks development is back on track and I believe all of the outstanding issues mentioned below have been resolved. I promise PodWorks won't go a year and a half without an update again, and I'm very much looking forward to "thinking outside the box" a bit with PodWorks 3.0 now. Thanks for your patience and continuing support--I look forward to serving your iPod management needs for a long time :-).

So it has been already over a year and a half since this pledge was made. Apparently, this software project has been abandoned.  
(Version 2.9.3)

M-RICK  It has crashed more than 15 times to be able to take back my 8000 songs from my iPod !! Not a very good performance for this.

But it is the only which has been to recover all the songs without duplicating a lot of them, only 40.

So it only get 3 stars thanks to this. To get more resolve for your really serious unstbility problems ! So the pricing remaining always to much high for something that will not work correctly.  
(Version 2.9.3)

DTMP  Worked as advertised with my Touch, tried a lot of others with no luck, this one worked without a hitch.  
(Version 2.9.3)

MOOSEMOOSE  I've been using PodWorks since about April 2004 if memory serves.

Despite the lack of an update in over a year, it's always been useful to me and has never failed.

I don't think I've ever come across a single programme that has given me more than this.  
(Version 2.9.3)