my second hand macbook pro 2011 doesn't have iLife. How do I get it?

Came with lion installed.

We know it has Lion installed now; the question is:

Did this machine come with Lion preinstalled initially??? In other words, did the original owner purchase it with Lion pre-installed or did s/he purchase Lion from the app store?

That is extremely important because of the different license restrictions; if you don't know the answer to that, then please post the exact model number and identifier so we can look it up.

If the machine came with Lion preinstalled initially, then the seller was/is allowed to make a one-time transfer of the OS when selling the machine. However, there is no info from Apple as to how this is to be accomplished; so, if this is what we are looking at, it would be best to call Apple and find out how to get the OS transferred to your Apple ID. For everyone else's benefit, please post Apple's answer to that here.

If the machine came with Snow Leopard installed initially, then my previous posts apply. You can buy the USB drive; however, according to the licensing terms, you still need to have Snow Leopard installed first to be legal. Hence my suggestion to buy the retail SL disk and then purchase Lion from the app store.

Without knowing which model you have, no one can be sure whether your machine can be booted with Snow Leopard or not and you haven't answered our questions, so we're guessing - good luck!

According to these:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1159

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i5-2.4- 13-late-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html

Your machine came with Lion preinstalled which means you will need to check with Apple as to how to transfer the OS into your name and Apple ID for future updates along with the iLife, etc. A late 2011 will most likely not be able to boot with SL.

You have a Late 2011 model and gyes if you had a 10.6.7 DVD version of Snow Leopard it would boot and install on that model Mac. Even though it didn't come with SL pre-installed.

As far as I know, the retail disk version is 10.6.3. Even if 10.6.7 or .8 would boot it, it may not be worth the trouble to get that far in this case - the OP just wants to be able to update Lion and get iLife - or so I thought?

Look 3 posts up. babowa gave you exactly what you need to do to get your machine put under your name and Apple ID. After you do that, you can install iLife to your heart's content and reinstall Lion as much as you want.

If your Mac came with Lion Pre-Installed you don't need Snow Leopard. Not sure where or how that got into this thread (I'm partly to blame).