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You either purchased a new computer, reinstalled your system or just reinstalled iTunes
Now, if you connect your iPhone to your Computer, you may lose all your iPhone data, because synchronizing an iPhone with an empty iTunes library can erase its whole contents
There are manual ways to Copy iPhone
songs to a Computer and then import
them to iTunes
Unfortunately, this does not preserve what makes your iPhone unique and priceless: all the personal settings you've built over time:
- Playlists
- Ratings
- Play counts
- Album artwork
- Date last played
- Date last skipped
- Date added
- Skipped count
- Default volume
- Start time
- Stop time
- Artist
- Album
- Podcasts & subscriptions
- Audiobooks
- Videos
- Contacts
- Games
- Apps
- Skip when shuffling
- Remember playback position
- Episode ID
- Episode number
- Season number
- Etc...
That's a lot of precious stuff !
Now, to Rebuild iTunes based on your iPhone including all your personal settings, you need a third party program
- Start by getting it from here
- Install it
- Open the program with the shortcut on your Desktop
- Just hit the "Start Backup" button
After a couple of minutes, all your iPhone data are back in iTunes !
From now on, you can sync your iPhone with iTunes again, just the way you always did !
Notes & possible issues
- This procedure will also Transfer purchased songs from iPhone to iTunes
- It will Update iTunes Library based on iPhone, which means if some of your songs are already in iTunes, it will skip them and not create duplicates
- The above procedure is based on the automatic mode ( recommended )
For more advanced users, this program offers all expectable fine-tuning options
Just hit the "Manual Backup" button and you get access to a full range of advanced settings:
- Filter the elements you wish to transfer by:
- Song
- Playlist
- Artist
- Album
- Genre
- Etc...
- Customize the way your songs are imported to both your Computer and iTunes:
- Automatic song renaming options based on combinations of Artist, Album, Name,...
- Folder / sub-folder structure creation based on Artists, Albums,...
- Metadata ( personal settings ) to be imported or not: Ratings, Play counts, Date last played ( see full list above )
- Etc...
Mike Johnson
Founder and Editor of sync-iphone.com has a sincere desire to provide readers with honest and useful solutions for their iPhone
More about him on Google+
Is this software compatible for Mac? It didn’t work with my new Macbook (PC died last week with all in it, got a backup of all my music which I already copied to my new iTunes, but I still wanna keep the ratings etc.)
Is there a way to still get it into my new iTunes from my iPhone ?
Thanks for any help
Boris
Hi Boris,
On Mac, you can try xPort
It’s slightly the same
A bit less richly featured maybe, but that’s about the closest option for Mac
How long does it usually takes for itunes to rebuild the iTunes Library?
Thx
Dear Newton,
This widely depends of the size of your Library
Expect a while if your Library is say more than 20 Gb
This also depends of your USB ports. USB2 is obviously much faster than USB1
This probably sounds stupid but do I do this on my old computer or the new one? I also will be syncing an ipod touch. I assume it will be happy once I have established the itunes account on the new computer.
Dear Jac,
You can use the above procedure to transfer iPhone music, playlists, etc to any computer / iTunes library
It basically copies your iPhone library to iTunes onto any computer
Regarding your iPod Touch, keep in mind that following the same procedure for a second device will merge its contents with the ones of the first device into your computer library
To import several iPod devices separately on a single computer, please read our Manage multiple iTunes libraries on the same computer instructions
I got my apps from my old I Phone to my new one but what about music?
Dear Emilio,
Just transfer Music from your old iPhone to iTunes as per the above instructions
Then, synchronize your new iPhone with your computer
You should be all set
Will this save SMS conversations? That is what I am most concerned about being deleted when I sync my iPhone to my new computer.
Also, my old computer (that my iPhone was previously synced to) is dead. Do I need the old computer at all to make the transfer?
Dear Anon,
Unfortunately, this won’t transfer your SMS conversations
By the way, you don’t need your old computer, just your iPhone and the new computer to which you want to transfer your data
Can I copy only my Playlists with this program.
I moved my complete music to another HDD and imported it again in itunes.
Unfortunally all my playlists are defect since then.
So can i just rebuild my playlists with this program?
Greetz
Tomy
Dear Thomas,
You cannot copy only your playlists from iPhone to iTunes.
Though, if you use the above program to copy all your iPhone Library to iTunes and iTunes already contains your songs, it will actually do what you want.
Indeed, as the program skips songs that are already in iTunes, it will technically only transfer playlists from iPod to iTunes.
I would like to put music from the itunes on MY computer onto my husband’s iPhone. There is no music at all on it. We are travelling with my computer, not his (which doesn’t have iTunes on it, anyway). He, of course, does not wish to lose his other data, and his phone is synched for all other purposes to his computer). Is there a simple way to put the music on his phone?
Dear MPV,
Just set your iPhone to be managed manually
Then, you’ll be able to drag songs from iTunes to your husband’s iPhone without deleting any data from it.
how do i make sure the contacts were transferred. in the program it only indicated it was transferring music with no other options. My only goal is preserving my contacts.
Dear Deven,
You can open Outlook or the application you usually sync your iPhone contact with and check that your contacts were properly transferred
Will this also transfer the Notes and Phone Contacts already saved in the iPhone?
Dear Torres,
To transfer notes and contacts from iPhone to computer, your best bet is Google Sync
Hi,
I have tried the method above but it only worked for songs. I wish to sync all my apps from my phone to Itunes not visa versa. How would I do this without losing my apps???
Thanks
Dear Cat,
If your apps didn’t get transferred, you can find additional information on how to Transfer apps from iPhone to iTunes here
Hi there, I recently had to reinstall my itunes and have already uploaded a heap of music to my library. My question is that i have a lot of important voice recordings on my iphone that I wish to back up to my itunes to back up my memo’s. the music on my phone doesn’t matter, I know i can email the files to myself from my phone but there are a lot and it would be very time consuming. i’m worried that I will lose all my data if i sync. Can you help me out?
Dear Bill,
Sure, the program introduced here will allow you to transfer your voice recordings to iTunes
Is there a way to recover the information? I lost a number of contacts, and apps when I sync’d the old way! I would appreciate it!
Dear Michelle,
I would recommend that you try the instructions at the bottom of this other post Restore iPhone Deleted Contacts
My husband has an iPhone 3G (mine’s a 4) and it crashed a few days ago. Found out he had NOT been syncing/backing up consistently. Long story short, I got his phone synced up & restored, he lost probably a month’s worth of info (whatever time frame to the last time he plugged in & syncd to his PC). My question is — when I plug into my PC, my phone automatically kicks iTunes & goes into autosync mode. However, his phone will kick iTunes and his phone does show up in the listing on the lefthand side, but I have NOT been able to get it to do an auto-sync. He has to physically click on the SYNC option at the bottom right of the iTunes screen. ?? What am I missing? Since I’m not sure I can bank on him following through (ie, he’ll plug in and then get interrupted and never hit sync), I’d like to NOT have another “O-M-G” moment of panic again. Thanks in advance. Michelle
Dear Michelle,
Your husband’s iPhone probably needs to be set to be automatically updated back again
For this, follow these instructions Manage iPhone Manually except that you have to uncheck the “Manually manage music and video” option
Very relevant – and useful. Thanks.
Requesting a word of advice: My iTunes library sits on an AEBS external disk, mounted as an external drive. Unfortunately the iTunes database files were hosted on the local HDD, which crashed and burned, so a new HDD was my only choice – with zero recovered files from the previous disk.
What are my options? To import the entire iTunes folder from the AEBS back to the newly installed iTunes, and then running this 3rd party tool to sync iTunes to this iPhone, or the other way around (sync from the tool then repopulate iTunes with AEBS files)? I’m mostly worried about any application data which may not be available in case I sync to the computer – iCloud backups are up to date.
Glad for any inputs.
Cheers.
Dear Alex,
Just use the recommended application to Transfer songs from your external hard drive to the iTunes Library
Then, synchronize iPhone with iTunes
My iPhone 4 has stopped syncing to iTunes, it gets stuck on step 7 of 7 and wont complete the sync?
Also how do you change the mail account on iTunes, I had a POP account and now a EXCHANGE account and have tried to but with no luck
Dear Jason,
Please find hereafter the solutions to these two problems
iPhone won’t sync to iTunes
Change email account on iTunes
My iphone is syn to my old laptop previously. I just bought a new macbook and want to transfer my apps from my iphone to the mac itunes library, but neither the CopyTrans nor the Xport can be opened in my mac. What should I do?
Actually I wanted to transfer movies from mac to my iphone but it says something like my iphone is not sync to this macbook itunes library, so they want to erase and syn it(which means it will become empty i guess).
In addition, icloud actually back-up my apps right?But how do i retrieve it?
Thank you!
Dear SJ,
First off, follow these instructions to Prevent iTunes from trying to Sync iPhone
Then, log in to your iCloud account and synchronize your iPhone with it, which should transfer your apps back to your iPhone
Hi there,
I wonder if you could help me on this. I used to have an iphone 4 until I
lost it 2 days ago. I have been using iTunes to do my back up and the last
time I did it was 2 weeks ago. Now I am trying to use HTC Desire S for the
time being before iphone 5 is available. Could you please tell me if it is
possible to sync the data on my iTunes esp contact lists and calendar to
the HTC? If so, how to do that?
Your help is very much appreciated!! Look forward to your reply soon!
Many thanks!
Best Regards,
Carolina
Dear Carolina,
This is the tutorial you need Sync iTunes to Android
Hi, I know if I carry this procedure out with multiple devices they will merge in itunes, but can I still sync them individually. What I mean is, I carry the above procedure out for 1 iphone, 1 ipod touch and 1 ipad. Although the libraries will merge, will they still sync individually ?
Dear Lee,
Yes, you can sync multiple iPod iPhone with one iTunes library individually, but you will need some hacks
Hello,
I am trying to transfer some songs from a CD onto my dads iPhone for him (he is far from tech savvy). He has never synced his iPhone to this laptop however he has a ton of existing music on his phone from another computer that no longer works. I figured all we needed to do was change it to where we would manually update it but when I checked the box a message popped up warning me that all content existing on the iPhone would be erased and replaced with the current content existing on iTunes. Which is a completely different selection of music my dad has never been able to put on his phone. I would like to be able to keep his existing music but add all of the music and CDs we have imported into his iTunes library to his iPhone. I just don’t want to risk losing his data that is on his phone now. What do you recommend I do?
Dear Rachel,
Using the method above, you’ll be able to transfer the songs that are currently on the iPhone to iTunes
Then, you’ll just need sync the iPhone with iTunes
Hi,
I just downloaded and installed the program, like you said, from the link in the description. However, it’s limiting me to only 100 songs unless I buy the full version. Is there any way around this?
Dear Rachel,
Unfortunately, this program is a shareware, which means you can try it for free with some limitations and have to buy it to fully activate it
My goal is to maintain my library on 2 separate external hard drives each conntected to a different computer. I want to be able to edit the library on either computer, and have my ipod always sync the latest changes. Will this program enable me to do this?
hi, i’d like to ask your help for my situation.. my brother bought an ipad for me and before he handed it to me, he filled the ipad with some apps that he purchased with his ID.. the problem is that i can’t “transfer purchase” the apps to itunes using my ID, i guess because it’s under my brother’s ID, and his ID is out of authorization quota.. my question, is the program “copytrans” you recommended above able to move those purchased apps with my brother’s ID into my itunes library? does it have the same function as “transfer purchase”?
btw correct me if i’m wrong, this copytrans only allow moving files to itunes, but cannot transfer files from itunes to idevice right? if its so, is there a program to help to transfer files, musics, movies, apps from itunes to idevice? apart from itunes.. because the “sync” function is kinda frustrating me..