As you accumulate music (albums and individual songs), audiobooks, podcasts, TV shows, movies, etc. on your iPod nano, content inevitably becomes harder to find. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use your iPod's built-in search tool to find any content stored on your nano. This "incremental search" feature allows you to find anything with the minimum amount of "keystrokes" possible, a blessing, since typing on the iPod nano can be somewhat of a challenge. Since the search tool looks for any kind of media, you will use the same search box to find whatever you are looking for.
Quick tip: When you plug your iPod nano into your computer (Mac or PC), iTunes will automatically open (unless you have disabled iTunesHelper), and display the content of your iPod: know that you can use iTunes' built-in search tool as well to find content on your nano. If you have access to a computer, this can be the easiest way to locate a song / podcast / ..., since you can use your computer's keyboard instead of having to "type" with your iPod nano's Click Wheel: just select the media type (music, audiobooks...) on the left, and start typing your query in the search text box in the top right corner of iTunes' main window.
Find content with the iPod nano's search tool
This is how you find items inside your iPod nano:
- First, go to the Main Menu (home screen)
- Select the "Music" menu
- Scroll all the way to the bottom, and select "Search"
- Your iPod nano displays a search text box, with a blinking cursor:
• to type a letter, rotate the Click Wheel to select the letter (numbers and special characters are not available from the search tool), and press the Center button to enter the letter
• to erase a character, click on the Left button
• to insert a space, hit the Right button - Your iPod nano displays results in real time, as you type the content you are looking for ("incremental search") - you can stop typing at any time, but the more you type, the narrower your search results are.
- Once you have finished typing enough of your search query, press the Up button to load the search results. Scroll through the list and press the Center button to select one of the results your iPod nano found, and go from there.
If you cannot find what you were looking for, scroll to the very top, and select "Search" - this will bring back the search text box, and allow you to refine your query. Press and hold the Left button to clear the search field and start completely over.
That's all there is to finding content on your iPod nano! Being able to search right from your iPod is handy, but a bit tedious; later tutorials will explain how to organize your content on nano to minimize the number of searches, by creating playlists on your iPod nano (from iTunes), tweaking genres, changing media kind (type), etc.