Q: voice memos not showing up in itunes

[I have the same problem as all you. I went ahead and unchecked "include voice memos. Then synced the iphone. all my voice memos showed up and synced, weird, really weird.]

Vukodlak75, I'm so glad I read this post. I had tried so many complicated solutions, but no go. I took your advice and--voila!--finally a solution.

I am using a MacBook with 10.4.11, the iPhone 3 (really starting to show it's age at this point....) with 4.0.2, and iTunes 9.2.1. Like everyone else, my problems started suddenly.

In reading these posts, I tried the unchecking of the Voice Memo checkboxes and finally got a combination of checked and unchecked boxes that worked. It seems that the "tag" is reversed in their program. But here is what is important to notice...

There are 3 Voice Memos checkboxes in iTunes that can be checked (under Music tab):

a. The top box where it says Include memos -- leave that one checked

b. Playlists / Voice Memos -- that is the one to be unchecked

c. Genres / Voice Memo -- leave that one checked

Doing this worked for me... most of my voice memos appeared under the Voice Memos app, not under the Music app.

I say "most" of them, because before, when all Voice Memo boxes were checked, I could search the Music app for Voice Memos, and have a Voice Memo playlist appear, which it is not visible under Playlists, only when searched. A few of my very old voice memos appeared under this weird, invisible Playlist. Now with the above combination of checkboxes, the weird Playlist is still there, but my old recordings have disappeared from it and do not appear in the Voice Memos app.

Hope this is helpful and makes sense.  Thanks everyone who has posted trying to help!!!

I simply tried 80% of these solutions before i got annoyed. So in the end I just uninstalled itunes and downloaded it again from the apple site and now everything works. Not sure if this will work, but it did for me so goodluck with everyone.

Hmmm.  Voice memos don't appear in my "playlists" or "genre" lists.  Maybe this is why they aren't synching?

No, that is not why. They are not synching because this software and this app is %$#@$#ed. Any longer files -- I would say longer than 40 mins or so? -- seem to be saved by the Apple recorder as a .MOV (or Quicktime) file, which will not sync to itunes. If you really want to be able to get to your recordings, you need to download iexplorer, a third party app that lets you go into your iphone and fish out the file manually. you can save it to your desktop, then import it into Itunes (which will happen.) You can listen to it there, or to be on the safe side, convert it to an MP3 version under the "Advanced" menu of Itunes.

Or at least, this is what used to work. I just recorded two different 30 minute recordings yesterday on my iphone 3, and --- drum roll -- they didn't even record. NOT AT ALL. They don't exist in Voice Memos on the iphone, they didn't sync (obviouskly) and they don't exist in the recordings folder as seen in Iexplorer. I don't know if this latest issue -- which is far more serious a problem than the original nightmare --  is a problem with iphone 4, but as far as I am concerned, no one should record anything valuable with an iphone 3.

It really beggars belief that after ALL the posting on this issue, Apple still cannot come up wtih a fix for this. Not only that, but now this app is actually LESS trustworthy than ever. The other recording apps that used to be so great, on the other hand, can't sync easily, rendering them less desirable.

Are there ANY more reliable options out there for people who want to record with an iphone? This thing is just a total joke. If the camera were this bad, Apple would be issuing a recall.

This is correct the files have changed to .mov .. Quicktime .Why ?only the usless idiots at Apple can answer this.

I really hate all Apple productc theses days !!!

Hey.....

So I just used Sophia B's method, above.

This means opening Itunes, connecting your phone, going to your phones sync preferences (under the music tab) and:

UNCHECKING the  "Include Voice Memos" box

CHECKING the "Voice Memos"  box under Playlists

UNCHECKING the  "Voice Memos" box under Genres

It worked!! I was able to sync a 3:08 (3 hour 8 minute) audio file, with no problem -- no trimming, no custom label, no iexplorer, no nothing.

HOWEVER: I opened the phone with iexplorer and saw that the file existed there as an M4A file -- NOT a MOV.file, and I suspect if it were a MOV file it would not have synced. SO, what I suggest (because I did this before trying this experiment) is deleting all voice memos from your phone (after you are sure you have downloaded them), and restarting. Not sure why this time my phone recorded a M4A instead of a MOV -- still TBD.

Also, FTR, I am talking about an iphone 3, running OS 4.2.1 (which, bizarrely, an Apple rep told me was impossible unless the phone was jail-broken, which it is not.) 

Anyway -- three cheers for Sophia B! If this continues to work, it will be a godsend!

Oops.

Well, the trouble is only getting worse. Now my Iphone 3 will not record. Push the little red button -- nothing. Great.

Thanks Apple for all your swift attention to this train wreck!!!!

XOXO

   I've got an iPhone 4 and Tiger. I've had a ton of problems with this. I checked and unchecked boxes but it seemed random--could never tell when it would synch or not.

   BUT I find that "trimming" the memo works--you don't really need to trim it at all, just hit the button without actually shortening the memo. This makes it seem to the computer that it's new and it comes over.

   There could be a link between long and short memos becuase I had one 10-minute recording that came over immediately but the problem recording was over 70 minutes and only worked when I "trimmed" it. Interestingly, it also came over as a .m4a file--as if it were a movie.

   Anyway, this is really a disappointing app. Apple needs to fix this--it really shouldn't be so hard.

I had same issue.  Tried the above:

UNCHECKING the  "Include Voice Memos" box

CHECKING the "Voice Memos"  box under Playlists

UNCHECKING the  "Voice Memos" box under Genres

but I had to CHECK the "Include Voice Memos" box, as well as CHECKING the "Voice Memos"  box under Playlists.

Now it worked...finally...

Trimming the voice memo by a few seconds at the end of the recording (suggested by Xaero182) worked for me.  I had tried the suggestion to label the recording and that did not work for me.

I use iCloud for storage and in this latest update was not able to sync my voice memos that resided on my iPhone 4s. Nor did I see any of my voice memos, even when I looked at voice memos in my iPhone device within iTunes. However, when I looked in the voice memos app on the iPhone the memos were clearly there.

I then deselected sync by wifi in settings and did a sync with a cable. The new voice memos then synced and showed up in both iTunes and in my device within iTunes.

Luckily for me it was an easy fix, but this is a pretty important fix for Apple to address because I and probably others use these voice memos for work. There was no other way to transfer them to my computer for transcribing as the files were too large to be emailed.

This is the definitive, freeware, solution:

iExplorer, formerly iPhone Explorer, lets you access the files on any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer

Holy crap, trimming the memo actually WORKED for me.

I have a 2-hour long recording from a meeting that I have been needing to transfer over. I did just about everything on this thread, including restoring, syncing with and without voice memos included in the "music" tab, changing the voice memo title, etc. You name it.

Then I came across Xaero182's posted suggestion to I trim the memo.  So, I trimmed it by just a few seconds from the end, synced and BINGO!  It showed up in iTunes!  And NO, I didn't even have to think about reinstalling iTunes.

Really, Apple needs to develop a better way to handle files like this.

Oops.  Spoke too soon.  Now having all kinds of problems with getting anything to show up in the iPhone's list of voice memos AND the playlist.  Different, sporadic and wildly varying results.  What a effin' joke.  Giving up.  Going to download iExplorer (a third party file access utility) and use that.