There are purchased items on the iPhone “X’s iPhone” that have not been transferred to your iTunes library. You should transfer these items to your iTunes library before updating. So how about a clue as to what's not transferred and how to?

I would like some clarity on this statement that "this is not monitored by Apple" because I have posted a snarky thing or two over the years and have been removed from a particular thread and gotten e-mails from "Apple Support Communities Staff" via an apple.com e-mail address, so I'm not sure that Apple doesn't monitor these forums. Perhaps one of the forum members reported my snarky post to Apple?

It would be nice if Apple did monitor these forums and be a little more transparent with bug reports and fixes.

For any of you that are still experiencing this lately you may have the same problem that I had. I was receiving the same message and in my case I have my iPhone setup to backup to the cloud. The fix was to do a backup to iCloud first before attempting the upgrade. Hope this helps someone, cheers!

The "purchases" might be apps (free or not) that you downloaded directly to your iPhone using the App Store app. They might also be apps purchased some time ago but which have more recent updates that were downloaded to your iPhone. Updates or purchases made since the last time you synced your iPhone will be copied to your iTunes library as a backup.

The "purchases" might also be music or movies purchased on the iPhone but which are not yet in the iTunes library.

The "Hey, you can't update, because you haven't backed up your purchases. How can you expect to update when you haven't backed up?" message should not come up at all. Whenever it does, I always groan and sync the device, wondering why Mac did not anticipate this obvious step. Of course, syncing does not work, so I search, find this chain, and learn, eventually, that there's an option in a menu in a menu... File>Devices>Update my purchases. Non-intuitive. File>devices is not the first thing I think of when asked to update my purchases. And why make it a manual process, anyway? Are there people who buy things who prefer them wiped out during updates?

Transfer of purchased items should be part of sync.

If this message must appear, it should ask, "Would you like me to sync purchased items before updating?" or something easy like that.

It should not be buried under a sub menu that is (as this chain shows) not obvious. The fact that this chain exists should tell the interface designers that something as important as updating has unnecessary un-mac-like complexities that should be fixed.

My two cents.

I found myself shouting I HATE APPLE earlier, which is something I never thought I would hear myself say. I haven't been that irritated since shouting I HATE WINDOWS in 2002 before switching.

There is no way of finding your apple id (yes I know Find Your Apple ID, but it doesn't work, just helps you change your password, not find the original email address you registered under…)

And this not been transferred purchases thing is driving me potty. I have done everything the extremely helpful posts above have told me and I am STILL getting the flipping message. Do I press Continue, or am I in danger of losing something important - which purchases are these anyway?

And where oh where is the menu bar when you go into your device on iTunes anyway??? I want to transfer some photos across from my computer, and used to be able to do it by going into the device, then finding Photos in the menu bar along the top and clicking which albums I wanted to sync. But I can't find the menu bar now, aaaaaaaaargh.

Apple has gone from being intuitive to being downright opaque. Please change it, so I can go back to being evangelical about Apple again.

Honestly, if there was a decent alternative to Apple or Microsoft right now, I would be looking into it. Is there?

I'm a little confused. Which fix worked for you? And where do I start out to find "File>Devices>Update my Purchases"? I don't have that possibility in my "Finder".

Thanks for anyone who can help!!

File>Transfer Purchases

It's actuallyFile>Devices>transfer. And one must be sure the device is highlighted and not the connected computer.

100% correct, Thanks,,,

Thank you!! This totally worked for me. I had 53 items to transfer apparently.

I talked to a support agent as i had this problem earlier. Open iTunes, click iTunes>Preferences>Store then check Music & Apps under Automatic downloads. This fixes the problem!

<<File>Transfer Purchases>>

It is File > Devices > Transfer Purchases from....

Thanks -- this worked for me, once I found from the posts below that it's actually File > Devices > Transfer Purchases.

Thank you! "...be sure the device is highlighted and not the connected computer" is a VERY important detail! 🙂

Thanks Batwing. You are right. I looked on the settings sidebar on the left and went to "Apps" and it's just taking forever to transfer my 70 apps.