How Do I Upload My Movies to iCloud for iTunes Match?

Hmm... What an oddly pugnacious reply for a support forum....

I did not imply I "added" anything. These are digital copies of movies that were downloaded with a redemtion code through iTunes previously and are stored locally on my desktop. I did not want another copy on my laptop and needed to free up space.

Well, some movies i bought as blue-ray with didgit copy, xfer over to my icloud so I can watch over my apple tv, but some titles do not. Why??

What I am interested in doing is uploading personal home movies to my iCloud so that I can download/stream/view them on all my devices. Is this possible? I don't think this scenario has been covered in the above replys.

Hi,

No. You cannot upload personal home movies using match which is for music (and music videos purchased from iTunes Store).

iTunes in the cloud is a different product which relates to music, films and tv shows purchased from iTunes Store - see http://www.apple.com/uk/icloud/features/

Jim

using your apple id if you purchased your movies in itunes store it will work but if you downloaded it website then it wont no way.

How can I upload my purchased iTunes movies to iCloud?

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

How can I upload my purchased iTunes movies to iCloud?

Read the rest of the thread.

I have read the rest of the thread. I did not find the answer. That is why I have asked. It would be more helpful if you know the answer if you could just repeat it.

My understanding is that this is not currently possible, and that you have to provide an Apple representative with an order number. Then, they will re-activate the content in iTunes, and it will then be available in iCloud.

Since there is nothing in the Apple help about uploading purchases to iCloud, I assume that it is not possible to do I am merely trying to get confirmation of that. I did not find any information about uploading iTunes movies to iCloud in this thread either.

With Google Music, one can upload previous purchases and Google will "match them", and you can use that content in their subscription service. Apple has an iTunes "Match" service, but it does not work too well, I tried it.

The question is whether you can upload movies that were previously purchased in the iTunes store (using the same account) to iCloud, and thereby not ever have to worry about losing the content again, which is the stone-age way that Apple has done things with iTunes.

I am grateful for an answer to the question, not just a pointer to a thread or help article that does not contain the answer.

The distinction to keep in mind is that iCloud is not iTunes Match is not iTunes in the Cloud. The three services are not the same and do not require each other. See this Apple KB article for availability: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5085

The short answer to your question is it is not possible to upload purchases to iTunes in the Cloud. They are just there when you buy them. To see and download your past purchases see this Apple KB article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

If an item is no longer in your purchase history it is possible the item that you originaly bought is no longer in the iTunes Store. Keep in mind that just because an item is in the store doesn't mean it is exactly the same that you purchased. If you have questions about your purchase history you'll need to contact iTunes Store support.

Also keep in mind that it is your responsiblity to backup your purchases. Anything you buy from the iTunes Store you need to download and backup locally.

Michael wrote:

The distinction to keep in mind is that iCloud is not iTunes Match is not iTunes in the Cloud. The three services are not the same and do not require each other. See this Apple KB article for availability: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5085

So this was an interesting paragraph. The support article referenced discusses the geographic availability of being able to re-download iTunes purchases. However, it does not discuss the differences between the three services. That would have been interesting. Apple certainly doesn't make things simple. More like spaghetti with no documentation.

Michael wrote further:

The short answer to your question is it is not possible to upload purchases to iTunes in the Cloud. They are just there when you buy them. To see and download your past purchases see this Apple KB article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Except that if you bought the content in 2011 or earlier, before Apple had their Eureka moment about keeping records of customer's past purchases, then the content is not there. And if you didn't do a perfect job of keeping your receipt, then the Apple rep will just shrug their shoulders and say "Sorry." And if you didn't do backups because your life (my life, that is) is too hectic, then you are out of luck again and have to buy the content again.

Then Michael continued, and wrote:

If you have questions about your purchase history you'll need to contact iTunes Store support.

My experience is that Apple expects the customer to keep the purchase history. This is the critical difference that separates Apple from Google and from Amazon. Apple expects customers to maintain perfect records and backups, whereas Google and Amazon keep everything (content and records) for the customer.

Michael concludes:

Also keep in mind that it is your responsiblity to backup your purchases. Anything you buy from the iTunes Store you need to download and backup locally.

Now I am confused. I thought that the whole point of "iTunes in the Cloud" or whatever it is called, is that now, finally, Apple will keep your content and let you download it to any authorized device as many times as you want. So you could download a movie, watch it, delete it to free up space, and then re-download it again six months later and watch it again. What am I missing?

Regards.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

The support article referenced discusses the geographic availability of being able to re-download iTunes purchases. However, it does not discuss the differences between the three services. That would have been interesting.

That KB article is not supposed to discuss the differences between iCloud, iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud. It only tells you what the availability is of iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

Except that if you bought the content in 2011 or earlier, before Apple had their Eureka moment about keeping records of customer's past purchases, then the content is not there.

That's not entirely true. When Apple introduced iTunes in the Cloud, for most folks, most of their past purchases were available for re-download from the purchase history. However for various reasons some purchased items might not be available any longer. For example some of your purchases may have gotten hidden. See this Apple KB article concerning how to find and unhide hidden items: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4919.

Also, if the copyright holder of an item you purchased removes that item for some reason then it will no longer be available for re-download from your purchase history. Apple has no control over this. Just for reference my very first purchase from the iTunes Store ,from 2003, is available for re-download in my account.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

And if you didn't do a perfect job of keeping your receipt, then the Apple rep will just shrug their shoulders and say "Sorry."

Again, not true. Your receipts are availble to you by viewing your iTunes Store account in iTunes. Pull down the Store menu > View Account. In the middle of the screen you'll see this:

Click "see all" to view your purchase numbers.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

And if you didn't do backups because your life (my life, that is) is too hectic, then you are out of luck again and have to buy the content again.

With Time Machine it is very, very easy to maintain backups of all your personal data.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

Apple expects customers to maintain perfect records and backups, whereas Google and Amazon keep everything (content and records) for the customer.

I'm not going to get into a "war of the Terms of Services" but I suspect you'll find, if you really read them, that both Google and Amazon make no promises about how long or when your purchase will be available.

haroldfromsaltsjöbaden wrote:

Now I am confused. I thought that the whole point of "iTunes in the Cloud" or whatever it is called, is that now, finally, Apple will keep your content and let you download it to any authorized device as many times as you want. So you could download a movie, watch it, delete it to free up space, and then re-download it again six months later and watch it again. What am I missing?

iTunes in the Cloud is a convenience for you, not a backup service. Apple does not advertise it as a backup service and in fact does advise you to backup all of your purchases locally. Keep in mind that Apple does not control the copyrights to any of the media they sell. So if a copyright holder decides to remove an item from the store at any time, and it was something you purchased, then that item will no longer be available for re-download from your account. If you scroll to the bottom of the KB article on downloading past purchases I posted a link to in a previous post you'll see

Previous purchases may be unavailable if they have been refunded or are no longer on the iTunes Store.

So backup your purchases locally if they are important to you. If they aren't, then don't. The choice is yours.

I didn't see this mentioned in any of the replies so I will share my work around to this. I wanted the same as you, to be able to stream my movies that were not purchased through iTunes to any of my Apple devices the same way I do with other iTunes content. After attempting several work arounds with no luck I them remembered a piece of software that is on every Apple device and did not discriminate content... iMovie. You can add any content you have no matter what it is or where it came from just as long as it is formatted in an extension an Apple device can read (which is most all.) just simply import the file into iMovie creating a new project and then share with your iMovie Theater & iTunes in the cloud and presto your video is now in your icloud ready to be streamed. Enjoy

Its also possible to use Dropbox.

Any video of any type, in the correct format is visible under Dropbox. You need to make it a favorite to have a local copy on the device iPad, iPhone etc.... and then open dropbox app and play it from there...voila

The problem with this approach is that you can only load up to 15 minutes of video into the cloud. My 58 minute video received an Apply warning that it will not be uploaded because it was beyond the 15 minute length. Home sharing is the only way to share from the computer and then you have to be at home and on your own network to play it on any device that is also at your home on your home network. There is no way currently with an Apple product to upload to ICloud a movie longer than 15 so that it is availible to all your devices anywhere in the country (like you can do with music).