Mumsie42 wrote:
I have several ripped cd s on my iPhone (they have all disappeared from my windows laptop iTunes folder and from my iPadmini!)
I now have a MacBook Air - Tahoe 26.5.1 and am trying to transfer the files but I fear they will disappear from my iPhone as the only option seems to be 'sync music onto ...iphone'
Do not sync the iPhone as the sync is only one way, computer to iPhone. It will erase anything on the iPhone that is not already on the Mac.
In addition, as I really don't want to subscribe to Apple Music, any advice re ripping my many many cds using an origbelie external CD player would be much appreciated as ripping directly into Music following AI steps hasn't sent over artwork or Titles of tracks (I want to transfer mainly audiobooks)
Ripping CD's is only one way. There aren't multiple options. So using the rip option from the Apple Music's File menu is the only choice.
Ripping CD's does not bring over artwork or other data from the CD itself, it only copies the audio. The artwork and other data. are then attempted to be downloaded from Apple's catalog if they can match the CD. This usually works for music CD's pretty well. AudioBooks however may be a different thing altogether and may not be matched and as such may not be able get artwork for them. In which case you would need to manually add the artwork yourself. You would also need to change the format of the ripped media from Music which would be the default to Audio Book by selecting the ripped tracks then pressing command+I or right clicking on the files then on Get Info, and then from the Kind dropdown select AudioBook.
Should I download X Lossless decoder? is it easy to do - I consider myself reasonably IT literate but am 75 so maybe not as literate as I need to be! any help appreciated
Why would you download a converter? What are you going to do with it?
X Lossless Converter coverts one file format other another. It does not rip CDs or have anything to do with artwork.
Unless you want to change the format of the files you already have there seems to have no purpose in your process here, or there may be some missing context. What did the AI tell you, you needed that for exactly?
Now, if you still have the Windows PC, you can try to find your library there if it still exists by looking by an ituneslibrary.itl file and the associated media folder and see if you can have it load that.
Where was this library originally? Was it on an external drive? if so it may have just lost the connection and the files are still there, but iTunes will create a blank library if it can't find the one it's set to open.
alternatively you can use a third party app like iMazing or iExplorer to get the library out of the iPhone if you want and recreate it on the Mac.
click here ➜ Recover your iTunes library from your iPo… - Apple Community
