non itunes-purchased songs on iphone 5s won't transfer onto new computer's itunes

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non itunes-purchased songs on iphone 5s won't transfer onto new computer's itunes

So I have a bunch of mixtapes, audio files, unreleased songs and CDs on my phone but since I downloaded iOS8 (almost a year late because I never download iOS immediately), none of these songs are in my itunes (added note - I just got my first Mac, my PC worked fine with iOS8. go figure) and I'm scared to try the "sync music" check box because when I click it I get the message "Are you sure you want to remove existing music, movies, TV shows, books, and tones from this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?" because that sounds like I'm going to get rid of 2000+ songs just because I didn't purchase them via itunes. Is there a button or something that shows ALL music, not just purchased that I'm missing or...?

TL;DR - lots of songs on phone; not many songs on iTunes; don't know how to get non-iTunes purchases onto iTunes/computer

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.1.2

Posted on Jul 23, 2015 11:44 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,097 points

Jul 23, 2015 11:51 AM in response to ixxues

The reason it is wanting to erase your phone is because you are attaching the phone to an iTunes library to which it has not previously been synced, or at least it thinks it hasn't. This doesn't have anything to do with your installing a new iOS, it has everything to do with the particular iTunes library you are using.

Yes, it will get rid of all your media. The idea is that anything you bought from the iTunes Store that is on the phone can be transferred to the computer before syncing back to the phone. Anything else should already be on your computer from whatever place it came from originally and can be restored from there. Your i-device was not designed for unique storage of your media. It is not a backup device and media transfer was planned with you maintaining a master copy of your media on a computer which is itself independently backed up against loss. To use a device with a different setup you transfer the old library from a computer or a backup directly to the new setup, not the device to the library. Media syncing is one way, computer to device, updating the device content to the content on the computer, not updating or restoring content on a computer. The exception is iTunes Store purchases which can be transferred to a computer.

iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only purchases from iTunes Store

For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you will have to use third party commercial software. See this document by turingtest2: Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991

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