iTunes question... How eff'd am I?

[Whoozyerdaddy]

So right on cue, just before I was ready to backup everything and wipe my machine clean, my laptop cratered. My iTunes library, gone.

But! It's all on my iPhone. So yay?

I fixed my laptop and reloaded iTunes. I started to do a sync and iTunes told me that my phone would sync with my library...

But since I have no library I stopped. It sounded like my phone would sync to nothing and I'd lose everything in it. Is there a way for my iPhone to upload its contents to my iTunes or do I have to live with what I have (or lose it all)?

 

[Aikouka]

You can import your applications, but I believe you'll lose your music.

 

[Adramalech]

Worst case scenario, contact iTunes support via email and explain the situation to them. They might allow you to re-download all the music you purchased.

 

[TheStu]

There is software that you can use that will pull the music off of your iphone, Senuti for OS X, and something else for windows that I can never remember.

 

[dmw16]

There is software that you can use that will pull the music off of your iphone, Senuti for OS X, and something else for windows that I can never remember.

This was my first thought too.

I've heard apple is stingy with giving you back your purchased songs if you don't back up. But regardless I think you are better off just using software to pull them from your iDevice.

 

[TheStu]

This was my first thought too.

I've heard apple is stingy with giving you back your purchased songs if you don't back up. But regardless I think you are better off just using software to pull them from your iDevice.

If you contact them I believe that you can get an authorization to redownload all of your files again. They understand that accidents, emergencies, natural disasters and thefts happen. You won't be able to get them to do this on a weekly basis, but I am confident that they will do it once.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

I talked to Apple Support this morning. Anything you've purchased from the iTunes store can be uploaded from your device back into your iTunes library. Anything that wasn't in your device can be re-downloaded from the store.

Howeva... anything I ripped from a CD (80% of my music) is lost. That said, the Apple guy did point me in the right direction to find a recovery tool that can lift all the files out of my phone. I'm going to look around and see what I can find.

Thanks for the help.

 

[lokiju]

Jailbreak will give you file system access. Then you can just copy the files off.


Sent from my iPhone 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

I found a great program to upload all of my files... It's not free, but it works like a champ.

Xilisoft iPhone Transfer. Just FYI...

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Bookmarked. Thanks for your program suggestion. Even if my music is backed up on 4 HDD's, no one knows if something will go bad with them.

 

[wantedSpidy]

I found a great program to upload all of my files... It's not free, but it works like a champ.

Xilisoft iPhone Transfer. Just FYI...

i've used this too.

 

[TheStu]

I talked to Apple Support this morning. Anything you've purchased from the iTunes store can be uploaded from your device back into your iTunes library. Anything that wasn't in your device can be re-downloaded from the store.

Howeva... anything I ripped from a CD (80% of my music) is lost. That said, the Apple guy did point me in the right direction to find a recovery tool that can lift all the files out of my phone. I'm going to look around and see what I can find.

Thanks for the help.

There is talk that when Apple rolls out their Cloud music storage/player/whatever thingy that it will have all of your purchased music immediately, and then will let you upload anything else that you have that wasn't puchased, but that they have for a small fee (where by upload it would really just be them putting the songs into your library file) and anything else you can just upload. But the easiest methods would be for music that they sell.