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Transfer apps bought on another account

Is there a way to transfer paid apps between an iPad on one account and an iPhone on another without copying the IPA from the iTunes folder?


Example: I copied Star Walk from my iPhone to my brother's iPad, and authorized it using my password by copying the IPA from my iTunes to his. Is there a way to do that without iTunes, using only the 2 iDevices?

iPhone 4S

Posted on Apr 4, 2012 4:47 PM

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46 replies

Jul 2, 2017 10:00 AM in response to ikenna83

If you check the legal terms for the VPP with Apple, it only applies to corporations and educational institutions, not individual consumers. Individuals cannot register for the program, but officers of a company or a university or school (or school district) can register their company or institution. The representative of the company or institution has to register admins of the VPP with Apple and they distribute the software under the VPP registered ID.


Individual consumers are bound by the indivual user license agreements - Apple - Legal - Licensed Application End User License Agreement. The VPP program offers no individual user or family a means to bypass that limitation (unless they really wish to set up their own LLC or incorporated company and register it with Apple, their state and the IRS I suppose).

Apr 11, 2017 7:37 AM in response to GVOldSalt

Well, if they've grown up, shouldn't they be buying their own things, and not using yours? The software license is tied to the AppleID used to purchase it. And those software licenses are NOT transferrable between AppleIDs.


Apple would be in violation of copyright law, and subject to legal challenges by developers, if they allowed you to transfer non-transferable third party software licenses for apps and other copyright intellectual property. Their store facilitated a contract between your AppleID account for the sale of a limited use license for someone else's intellectual property. Apple has no rights at all to allow you to transfer that other parties intellectual property to another user. Family sharing is a limited allowance to share use of a single license amongst family members. If someone wants to leave the family sharing plan, they need to buy their own software licenses.


People keep talking about how it's their stuff so they should be able to do as they please, and that's just a silly and naive attitude this far into the "digital" age. You do not own any apps you've purchased. You merely have a limited use license to use someone else's intellectual property. The only thing that you own is the physical hardware in your hand. You do not own one single byte of the software nor firmware that is on it.

Aug 28, 2017 4:53 PM in response to Msweet63

I totally agree. In my case, my wife has an account and I have an account, why purchase the same app individually, it should be set has a family. Apple should allowed family accounts to be linked so that we can keep purchase apps on multiple accounts so long its all under the same last name. Wouldn't be something Apple. Don't be greedy and allow it!!!!

Aug 28, 2017 6:59 PM in response to zomby333

FWIW, you are not purchasing apps. You are merely purchasing a license to use the app. And, that license is tied to the Apple ID used to purchase it and it is NOT transferable. Those are part of the legal terms which you (and everyone) agreed to when you established an account. Compared to the old way of distributing apps via DVD install media, the "new" way of download only lowered the pricing considerably, but you also had to give up the right to own the app or be allowed to sell it. And, if the developer should choose to discontinue/withdraw the app for whatever reason, you are out of luck as it will no longer be available. Which is one of the reasons why I choose not to do business with the app store (with the exception of OS and included apps and some books).

Sep 14, 2017 6:06 AM in response to NineK_Flames

NineK_Flames wrote:


Consider this: my Mac was bought by the company and first set-up was made by service desk AppleID, so now if I want to update any pre-installed app, like iTunes, I need to go to service desk, but they ask me to use my own account to manage my apps.


The easiest solution is to transfer the apps to my account.

No, the only solution is for your service desk to change their practices. Software licenses are non-transferable. They have almost always been non-transferable. Even in the days before internet distribution of software, many software licenses did not legally allow transfer of the usage license, even if you provided someone with the media to install it and deleted it from your own devices.


This is not some new or novel software or intellectual property usage licensing scheme. The only difference these days is that with purely remote software distribution, developers and the companies they use to distribute their software have better mechanisms to ensure enforcement of license terms.


Your company simply needs to review and alter their practices for how they distribute software to employees on company owned equipment. If they want you to manage your software, then they need to have you buy it, install it and maintain it (and reimburse you for the cost). Or, they need to set up and use a method of centralized management and administration of employee devices (which bluntly, should hardly be challenging to any professional IT services group).

Apr 4, 2012 5:08 PM in response to cclloyd

Then I stand by my original point - but maybe I should not have been quite that harsh.


You can authorize up to 5 computers for iTunes content with the same Apple ID. I have 4 authorized computers for iTunes content. I use the same Apple ID on all of them. My family - my wife, my daughter and I - all share an iTunes account. that is perfectly acceptable.


I cannot however, transfer my apps to by brother's ID as his ID never purchased those apps. He must buy them with his own ID or in effect he would be stealing them. I can't copy a .ipa file to his iTunes just to make it "my iTunes" so that he can share my apps.


It's really pretty simple.

Transfer apps bought on another account

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