music downloaded directly to iPhone, not possible to sync to PC?

buglawton

Previously I have always bought real CDs, ripped them via iTunes and manually dragged to the iPhone, or done it via iTunes Sync instead of managing manually.

For the 1st time a couple of days ago I downloaded an album via iTunes app direct to the phone. I managed to sync it using iTunes on the laptop once, and could see the albums songs in my laptop's iTunes library folder with the artist and album name. I was playing around with converting the format of these songs, as a result it started creating duplicates of the songs in this folder. So I cancelled the operation halfway. Decided to tidy up by deleting the folder and re-syncing from the phone.. However, iTunes 11.0.3 simply fails to re-sync this album, that is, produce a backup on the laptop.

So for the 1st time ever I do not have a matching iTunes library on the laptop that matches the songs in the phone.

Additionally I have discovered that if these songs were ever deleted accidentally from the iPhone, they would have to be re-purchased! So I don't have a true backup. ( http://ipod.about.com/od/itunesproblems/f/re_dl_purchase.htm ). BTW I want to avoid using any kind of iCloud syncing as it would result in an annual charge for the amount of data I need.

Is there a simple fix to sync of iPhone > Laptop to work, or is there some hidden Apple rule that is preventing it?

scottishblondie

Actually you can re-download them from the cloud via iTunes on the iPhone now - no need to repurchase. If you need to do this go to iTunes -> More -> Not on this iPhone. You can also do this via iTunes on the computer: iTunes Store -> Purchased -> Not on this computer.

To back your purchases up onto your laptop connect up your iPhone, open iTunes and go to File -> Devices -> iPhone (e.g.) -> Transfer Purchases. I'm on a Mac so the menu command might be slightly different, but I would think it is pretty similar.

buglawton

Hmm I did not repurchase (as per my link above, it seemed that I'd have to re-pay), anyway the music was still on the iPhone. And I did do a transfer purchases, which did a lot of mysterious things flashing up the names of all my apps, but which did not bring in the missing album to my laptop.

Perhaps I should have done a re-purchase on the phone, or maybe via iTunes on the laptop... how many hoops does one need to dance through with Apple??

But the solution appeared due to a post form Mikebellows a week ago here in MSE!

I installed Copytrans which gives access the the free trial version, little publicized. There is apparently a track limit when you do a bulk backup/transfer, something like 250 songs.

All I needed was to retrieve 1 album.

And Copytrans did the job instantly and simply, where both iTunes and Mediamonkey have failed totally!

Very very simple compared to jumping through Apple hoops. I'm getting really frustrated with time spent getting around IOS restrictions - can see why people are defecting en mass to Android.

If Android, Google Market Music and Amazon Music can all offer a much easier experience, I wonder that Apple ties itself and its customers in such knots for fear of upsetting the music publishers. In doing so it is really hurting it's own marketing.