iTunes purchases won't sync to my iPhone on 2nd authorised computer

Question

iTunes purchases won't sync to my iPhone on 2nd authorised computer

Hi, I really hope someone can help.

My main computer for syncing the iPhone4 is the Mac at home. However I also plug it into my work laptop, mainly for charging it during the day. Both machines are authorised. Yesterday I bought two tunes from iTunes using my work laptop - but they won't sync onto the iPhone - and they aren't showing up in the iTunes library on the Mac at home, despite it being essentially the same iTunes account.

How can I use these purchases? At moment they are useless as I can't get them onto the iPhone or onto the Mac, so that was 2 x 79p wasted. Grrrr.

Please help, Appley type geniuses.

PC and Mac, iOS 4, Use PC at work and Mac at home

Posted on Sep 2, 2010 3:40 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Sep 2, 2010 3:46 AM in response to Julie Mountain

By design, the iphone will sync itunes content with ONE computer at a time. Any attempt to sync such content with a second computer will result in ALL itunes content being first erased from your phone & then replaced with the content from the second computer. Since you already sync with your home computer, you can't sync with your work computer unless you first want to erase your phone of all of the content currently on your phone. If you want to get this music on your phone, you're gonna have to copy it to a thumb drive & then transfer it to your home computer. From there you can then sync it to your phone. There is no way to download it to your home computer directly, without paying for it again.

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Answer 2

Sep 2, 2010 3:51 AM in response to wjosten

Thanks for that. Lesson learned as well - only buy music on the phone or at home!

I can see why itunes do this (I saw lots of people pointing this out in other threads as I hoped someone else would have asked this question before) but it is nevertheless frustrating. I wonder if it would be useful for message saying something like, "This is not your main iTunes account; purchases here will not show up in your main account. Are you sure you want to go ahead?" to pop up so that others don't make the same mistake.

Regards,

Jules

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Answer 3

wjosten

Level 10

95,321 points

Sep 2, 2010 4:04 AM in response to Julie Mountain

If you do purchase content directly on your phone, remember to File>Transfer Purchases, BEFORE you sync, or the content will be deleted from your phone. The itunes content sync is ONE WAY: Computer to Phone. 😉

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