You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

đź“° Newsroom Update

Billie Eilish is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2024. Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

old itunes library

Hi Brains Trust,

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to retrieve an old library of music (made up of cds uploaded through itunes on a PC plus purchases through itunes store - hundreds of hours of work) without having to use the original PC which is now dead... When I look at 'my' itunes library now it only has tunes I purchased - and possibly not all of them either. The original library is bigger than what's stored on my old 64GB ipod.... which is not local at the moment either. I now have an iphone so it would be nice to get everything downloaded onto it and enjoy the old stuff and add new stuff too, without starting from scratch?....

Appreciate your help, thanks in advance

Trandoha


iPhone XS Max, iOS 13

Posted on May 8, 2020 6:22 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 9, 2020 2:43 AM

Did you back up the old hard drive, or do you use iCloud?


If not, and you don't have either the original PC with your music on it or the iPod with some of the music on it, then starting from scratch would appear to be the only remaining option.


  • Your previous iTunes purchases should be available in the iTunes Store for you to re-download. You have to sign into your iTunes account (the same account that you originally used to buy the songs) from your new Library
  • Purchases from other online stores should be available for downloading again in your account with that store
  • Digital music, from other sources (artists's websites etc.) may or may not be available from the original place you obtained them, it depends upon that source. You'll just have to go back to those sources and try
  • Music from CD will have to be re-copied into your new Library from the original CD
1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 9, 2020 2:43 AM in response to trandoha

Did you back up the old hard drive, or do you use iCloud?


If not, and you don't have either the original PC with your music on it or the iPod with some of the music on it, then starting from scratch would appear to be the only remaining option.


  • Your previous iTunes purchases should be available in the iTunes Store for you to re-download. You have to sign into your iTunes account (the same account that you originally used to buy the songs) from your new Library
  • Purchases from other online stores should be available for downloading again in your account with that store
  • Digital music, from other sources (artists's websites etc.) may or may not be available from the original place you obtained them, it depends upon that source. You'll just have to go back to those sources and try
  • Music from CD will have to be re-copied into your new Library from the original CD

old itunes library

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.