How do you transfer items purchased on your iPhone to your Mac?

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Level 1

67 points

How do you transfer items purchased on your iPhone to your Mac?

I am trying to upgrade my iPhone to OS 4 but I get a message that says "There are purchased items on your iPhone that have not been transferred to your computer" and that I should transfer these before proceeding, but no where does it tell me how to do that and everything I have tried (drag and drop into the library, check for available downloads) doesn't work. Further, when I search things like "transfer purchased items" in the iTunes help, I get nothing that helps. BTW, my only purchases on my phone are the free downloads from Starbucks. I am not a novice so find this frustrating that I can't figure it out and there doesn't appear to be any instructions!

2008 MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jun 23, 2010 12:26 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

Jun 23, 2010 12:51 AM in response to Dan Bryant1

How do you transfer items purchased on your iPhone to your Mac?

connect your device and right-click or control-click your iPod/iPhone in the iTunes source list, then choose +transfer purchases+ from the shortcut menu that appears.

J GG

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Answer 2

Dan Bryant1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 23, 2010 8:40 AM in response to Jolly Giant

That did it, thanks! So I tried search just "transfer purchases" in iTunes help and still could not find any reference to this. How is one supposed to know this?

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Answer 3

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

Jun 23, 2010 8:51 AM in response to Dan Bryant1

Dan Bryant1 wrote:
How is one supposed to know this?

maybe search [_*Apple support*_|http://www.apple.com/support> next time:

http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search&src=supportsite.home&locale=enUS&q=transfer%20purchases

happy computing !

J GG

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Answer 4

Dan Bryant1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 24, 2010 12:34 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Well I spoke to soon. That didn't work, still getting the same message about purchased items that have not been transferred despite following those instructions several times and restarting iTunes. I couldn't find anything that hadn't been transferred however so I am now proceeding with the install. We'll see in the morning what happens!

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Answer 5

iHaggis

Level 1

0 points

Jun 24, 2010 2:11 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Had no problem find several ways of getting iTunes to transfer purchases from my iPhone, but it happens VERY quickly and afterwards I still get the "There are purchased items on the iPhone" message when I try to update the iPhone's software.

Are there any logs, debug tools, or other ways of finding out WHAT purchased items haven't been transferred, and perhaps even why?

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Answer 6

Dan Bryant1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 24, 2010 8:55 PM in response to Dan Bryant1

Gave up trying to figure out what purchased items I had that were not on my computer and did the OS 4 update. Everything is there as far as I can tell.

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