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Syncing music from iphone to itunes that are not purchased or on the computer

I know....sounds crazy..


Okay, so I had a Dell with all of music stored on the hard drive. This includes songs that were not purchased via Itunes. Of course, it winds up breaking down and the hard drive crashes. I decide to purchase a Mac. When I connect my phone to Itunes, I cannot do anything with the music on my phone that was not purchased. I don't have access to all of the music anymore. Is there anyway to transfer the music from my phone to itunes on the mac if it is not on the computer?

iPhone 5s, iOS 9.2

Posted on Feb 13, 2016 4:57 AM

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3 replies

Feb 13, 2016 5:13 AM in response to tiafrombronx

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." As of iOS9 it no longer does apps which now must be re-downloaded directly from the 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 you have purchased or uploaded cannot be transferred and have to be downloaded directly from iCloud.

Feb 13, 2016 8:51 AM in response to tiafrombronx

Not crazy... By design, iTunes syncing is typically in one direction only, from the computer's iTunes library to device. Except for songs purchased from the iTunes Store (which you can also download again from iTunes Store at no cost on the new Mac), you cannot transfer song files from device to computer using iTunes. However, that are third-party utilities that can transfer from device to computer. If you do an Internet search on something like "iphone transfer music," you should get some useful links.


Best long-term solution. Back up your user data (including your iTunes data). Now that you have a Mac, it's easy. Get a large external drive and use the built-in Time Machine feature. Then, you won't have to resort to off-loading song files from your iPhone, and you'll get your complete iTunes library back, including supporting data, such as playlists, song ratings, play count, etc.

Syncing music from iphone to itunes that are not purchased or on the computer

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