iTunes/IPhone help

Andrew Broughton

Andrew Broughton

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Feb 2, 2011
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Full disclosure, I'm not an Apple guy. But I do have an iPhone and love it.
iTunes on the other hand, is another matter. Easily one of the most annoying programs ever made. But I digress...

I have reinstalled my OS on a new partition on my notebook. The old partition is still there (for now) with the original iTunes install which can connect to my iPhone.

I have my iPhone loaded with some of my favourite music, all my own and from my ripped CDs.
I have a much larger library of music on my notebook's drive, again all my own and from ripped CDs.

Installed iTunes, with "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder..." options unchecked.

Plugged in my iPhone and after it showed up in iTunes, tried to select "Manually manage music and videos".
After clicking "Apply" I receive the dreaded "The iPhone <phone name> is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?"
Of course I don't want to erase anything on my iPhone.

In searching on the 'net, there's suggestions on how to back up your iPhone and get the music off of it and back to it, but I don't want any of that. I just want this copy of iTunes to allow me to copy some more music onto my iPhone.

I "authorized this computer" and did "transfer purchases".

Help an old Windows user out?
 
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Apple won't let iTunes copy music from one computer to another.

Since you have music on your phone that "presumably" came from another computer, if you sync with a new computer, it will "copy" music to it which it will not permit.

I just went through this last week.

It doesn't "erase" the phone, just the music.

What I did was make sure all the stuff I had on the phone was on the new computer including playlists, then went ahead.

I wish Apple would let me sync the phone with multiple computers like I did with my Palm devices. I kept my address book and calendar synced between my desktop, laptop and pocket device.

Sent from my iPad HD
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Thanks for the quick reply, Rob.

Rob Spence said:
Apple won't let iTunes copy music from one computer to another.
Click to expand...
I'm not looking to copy music from one computer to another. Just looking to copy more of the music from the same location to my iPhone.

I really don't want to go through picking and choosing all the music I have on my iPhone again. There has to be an easier way. Damn you Steve Jobs!!!
 
I agree that you are not looking to copy but when you sync, you WILL have copied if they let you.

Personally I don't want Apple, or anyone of the other computer companies, performing law enforcement.

In my case, and I suspect in yours, I have purchased all my music and have the CDs and DVDs in storage to prove it.


Sent from my iPad HD
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Andrew Broughton said:
Thanks for the quick reply, Rob.

I'm not looking to copy music from one computer to another. Just looking to copy more of the music from the same location to my iPhone.

I really don't want to go through picking and choosing all the music I have on my iPhone again. There has to be an easier way. Damn you Steve Jobs!!!
Click to expand...

Keep the music you want on your phone in a playlist in iTunes and only sync that playlist with the phone. Unfortunately you may have to re-pick the music currently on the phone since you apparently didn't put it in a playlist in the first place. You can have lots of playlists on the computer that you can choose any number of to sync with the phone. It really is easier than transferring any other way. The playlists will still appear as playlists on the phone. If you don't want playlists on the phone, just use one iTunes playlist for everything you want on the phone.

Mac
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Ok, Mac, thanks for your suggestion.

If I understand the concept, what you're saying is if I have a playlist on my computer's iTunes (not on my iPhone) that includes all of the music on my phone, when iTunes wipes my iPhone, I can just sync that playlist and then it will also copy all of the music files contained in that playlist to my iPhone?

It sounds like you're also saying that if I don't already have a playlist set up like this, I won't be able to do it with the new computer? If that is true, I still have the other computer which I originally ran iTunes from and will talk to the iPhone. Would I need to set up the playlist there? If so, how do I get that playlist recognized by the other install of iTunes?

Thanks for your help, Mac. A little more hand-holding and it sounds like I can get this working.
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

plug in your phone to the computer expand the phone tree on the left side of iTunes right click on the playlist you want on your computer and chose export. Then click on file and go down to Library and chose import playlist select the export file you created with export. Now you have the playlist on your computer. as long as you have the actual music files on there you are good to go.
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Yes create a playlist on your phone first. Open up your music on your phone. Touch the playlists icon at the bottom. Chose create new playlist then a list of songs will show up. At the top of that list is add all songs. chose that and you have your playlist with everything on your phone in it.


I had many choice words for Apple till I figured this out...
 
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Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Ok, did as you wrote.

Created an "all music" playlist on my iPhone
Exported that playlist to my computer
In iTunes, Imported that playlist

Now, on iTunes on my computer, that playlist appears under playlists, as expected. However, when I highlight it, the page does not show any music, just instructions on how to add music to this playlist.

Update -
the problem only exists if the playlist is .m3u. If I export/import .txt it shows the songs.
It did complain though that "some of the songs could not be found". How do i determine which songs it couldn't find?
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

If you look in your playlist on your computer there should be a small Exclamation point in a circle next to the number to the left of the song name. It might be easier to see if you switch to list view. If you are not already in that view.
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

First off, don't blame Apple for the goofy copying restrictions. The music industry demanded that of Apple. Way back when, iTunes was way more friendly for moving stuff around. It's better than it was though.

I would look into syncing with iCloud instead of to your computer. I never have to plug my phone in to iTunes that way. Since I have several computers, it was a nightmare trying to sync before that. I'd never remember which is which. With cloud sync, that problem goes away. If you have music that wasn't purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match, for $25/yr fixes that problem too. Now all of your music can be on all of your devices when you want it. Pretty amazing, really.
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

LOL that's a lot of songs. It will waste a bit of paper but, you can print out the song list from your phone and then use that list to check off what is on your computer. After that you will need to some how find those songs and put them back on your computer from the original source. What I would do is boot the old partition and just copy the whole itunes music directory to a USB hard drive or a stick if you have one big enough to hold everything. Then boot into the new system and you can just copy the iTunes music directory on the usb drive to the new iTunes directory or if you have songs on the new directory that were not on the old one just copy the songs over that you need.
 
Re: iTunes/IPhone help

iCloud is what I ended up using so I would not have issues in the future. However, if you try and set your phone to sinc with iCloud it will erase everything on your phone first. Anything on your phone but, not on your computer will be toast. You have to go through and verify that all the songs are on a computer first. Apple will not allow you to copy music from your phone to a computer unless it was an iTunes purchase.
 
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Re: iTunes/IPhone help

Kent Thompson said:
Are you sure you are viewing the itunes play list imported to your computer and not the main music list?
Click to expand...

It didn't import the tracks it couldn't find, that's why the computer playlist has fewer entries than the phone playlist. Getting this right the first time is going to be some work to get back what you want. Some of those tracks are either not on your computer, or are not where they were expected to be. How did you get the music on the phone in the first place since you didn't have a playlist to sync?

Keeping a couple of playlists on your computer that you want on your phone keeps it easy in the future. A general playlist, and a testing playlist for instance. I also have playlists of current music clients want for walk in. they are easy to edit in iTunes on the computer, then just sync the phone.

Mac
 
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