How do I transfer music from an iPad to new Mac desktop

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Level 1

19 points

How do I transfer music from an iPad to new Mac desktop

I need advice in transferring my music from my iPad to my new Mac desktop. My old desktop had all the same music on my iPad, but it crashed and I've just authorized my new computer. My new computer only shows downloaded(purchased) songs, and not the many hundreds I've downloaded from CDs. When I connect my iPad to my computer, I see the "SYNCH" button. But, I fear, pressing the SYNCH button will delete the big library of songs from my iPad and just mirror image what is on my computer. I don't see any options of synching songs from my iPad to computer. Do I need to somehow store my iPad music to an external drive, then try to upload it on my computer?

iMac 27″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Mar 30, 2024 12:04 PM

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Answer 1

Phil0124

Level 10

217,322 points

Apr 1, 2024 6:07 AM in response to Macaroni2

See the following.

click here ➜ Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

91,468 points

Mar 30, 2024 1:17 PM in response to Macaroni2

Beware that the cabled sync feature is from the iMac to iPhone or iPad and not the other way around.

Bummer, that's what those Time Machine backups are for. Do you still have the TM backup drive.?

To be honest I do not use iCloud, so I'm not sure if you can recover your CD collect from there, but that does seems like a good option at this point.

Personally I have over 200GB of music from my CD collection, that will never ever see the Cloud. It is backup on more than three external drives. In addition to a couple of clone backups, I have a third copy on a FAT-32 formatted drive to share with family and friends.

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Answer 3

Macaroni2 Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 30, 2024 12:48 PM in response to den.thed

Unfortunately, my Time Machine backups were all unsuccessful. So I gave up on Time Machine, and resorted to backing things up on iCloud. I'm not certain, if iCloud stored my Music Library though. I shall check. Guess, it is hard to harvest what I have on my iPad and synch it to my computer then. I have all my CDs still, but it would take a Herculean effort of time to reload it on my computer.

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Answer 4

Macaroni2 Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 30, 2024 1:05 PM in response to den.thed

I checked my iPad...when I go to SETTINGS >click on my ID>iCloud>Apps using iCloud>Music...it is turned on...I have 49Gb of music on my iPad. So it must be stored somewhere on iCloud? I just don't know how to retrieve.

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Answer 5

Macaroni2 Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 30, 2024 1:36 PM in response to den.thed

Thank you, and yes, I intuitively suspected it only went one way from computer to iPad/iPhone and could not go the other way too...I thought there was that option years ago, before Apple Music came on the scene. I'll check if my other external hard drives have any successful TM saves. Otherwise, all is not truly lost...just a lot of time if I want to reload my CDs on my computer and the inability of burning a CD to play in my car or Bose player. I'll try to work on a TM on my new computer now that I'm starting from scratch. Thank you for that important piece of advice...I won't press the SYNCH button.

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