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Syncing ENTIRE iTunes Library & Playlists from iPhone TO laptop

Hello, I need to duplicate my entire iTunes library and playlists FROM my iPhone TO my MacBook Pro. I have a new hard drive and my backup files were corrupted. My iPhone iTunes is correct. The backup for the laptop has corrupted playlists (and possibly missing music). I want them identical. I don't want just the purchased music to move to laptop--I want the entire thing to move over and replace onto the laptop. If I have to, I can delete the corrupted iTunes library & playlists on the laptop to perform this task. All I can find online is syncing FROM laptop TO iPhone--I need just the opposite. I want my playlists back on my laptop!


Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance.


My MacBook Pro is OSx 10.6.8

My iPhone is a 5 running iOS 7.1.2

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Mac user (and net admin) since 1987

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 1:12 PM

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1 reply

Oct 6, 2015 2:49 PM in response to Kass Johns

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.


Redownload or transfer your iTunes Store purchases from an iPhone, iPad or iPod to a computer - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201267 - "This feature works only for content bought from the 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 Even this method may not fully recover what you had in the library originally. For example if in order to save space when syncing you had converted music files to a lower bitrate, or photos to a lower resolution, it is those lower quality files you will recover.


If you subscribe to Apple Music, tracks which are not part of content your have purchased or uploaded cannot be transferred and have to be downloaded directly from iCloud.

Syncing ENTIRE iTunes Library & Playlists from iPhone TO laptop

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