Marty_Macfly said:

Q1. Is there any way to download the music I bought years ago, from iTunes, onto the MacBook, using just apple apps?

Marty_Macfly said:

Q2. For the other music on my iPhone, which I copied off CD's, how do I copy these onto my MacBook?

- I've googled searched and can only find 3rd party apps to do this.

Q3) Is iMazing the best app for this kind of thing? It is seriously expensive:

Use the Finder to share files between your Mac and your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

With macOS Catalina, you can use the Finder to share files between your iOS and iPadOS devices and your Mac.

support.apple.com

Dave Braine said:

I'm still on Mojave so I haven't used Finder to sync my iPhone, but does this help? It says that you can copy files from an iPhone/iPad to a Mac.

Use the Finder to share files between your Mac and your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

With macOS Catalina, you can use the Finder to share files between your iOS and iPadOS devices and your Mac.

support.apple.com

Marty_Macfly said:

Q3) Is iMazing the best app for this kind of thing? It is seriously expensive:

justashooter said:

I use EaseUS MobiMover at https://www.easeus.com/phone-transfer/mobimover-free.html
It allows you to copy all your music files (and other files such as images) from your iphone to the Mac. I have a bunch of music files I ripped from my CD's. iTunes will not "sync" files from the iphone to the mac, only the other way - so it doesn't really "sync". And I don't understand why. Anyhow that's what I use.

justashooter said:

Apparently they have changed their business plan. When I downloaded the app it was free, and unlimited movement of files. $40 a year, they're nuts.

chscag said:

As stated above, if you can find iMazing 2 on sale, that will be your best choice. iMazing does much more than move music from your iDevice to your computer. I believe they have a trial period where you can test the software.

Marty_Macfly said:

Hi All,


I was hoping that some music would download onto my MBA from my Apple ID initial set up of the new M1 MBA.

The music section is completely blank at the moment.

Hope you can advise on the below questions:


Questions:

Q1. Is there any way to download the music I bought years ago, from iTunes, onto the MacBook, using just apple apps?

Q2. For the other music on my iPhone, which I copied off CD's, how do I copy these onto my MacBook?

- I've googled searched and can only find 3rd party apps to do this.

Click to expand...

1. Open Music on the M1
2. Under the Account pull down, select View My Account.
3. This will allow you to see if you've properly set up with the Apple ID. Fix it if not, by following the prompts.
   1. Note that if you purchased with different Apple IDs, you'll need to Authorize your M1 with each of the Apple IDs you've used in the past.
   2. Authorize is also a selection under the Accounts pull down.
4. Once you have all your Apple ID's authorized, go to Accounts pull down again and you will see selections for Purchased and for Check For Available Downloads
   1. You can play with each of these. You should be able to download what you've purchased in the past using each of the Apple IDs you've authorised.
   2. If you still can't see any of your songs, try calling Apple Support.

1. Plug in your iPhone to your M1.
   1. it goes much faster if you're using a Thunderbolt cable instead of a USB cable.
2. Make sure both devices are turned on and unlocked.
   1. At some point you're M1may ask you to unlock the iPhone.
3. Open a new Finder Window
   1. You should be able to see your iPhone listed on the left hand column of the Finder Window. Mine is listed under Locations in that column.
      1. It may take a few seconds to recognize the iPhone.
      2. Make sure you open the Window large enough to see everything. Some of the items you might want can be hidden if the Window isn't large enough.
   2. Select the iPhone.
      1. You'll see a new display in the Finder Window showing all sorts of options that are similar to what was displayed for syncing in the old iTunes..
   3. This piece now is important:
      1. You should see a row of about 10 buttons: General, Music, Movies, etc
      2. If you click on them you'll see different options for each category that control what is synced.
         1. If you choose an option within a specific category to not sync, It will remove items in that category from the iPhone.
            1. You could lose stuff from the iPhone this way.
      3. Set all of the options for each category. Yes, It's tedious.
         1. Those settings will persist so you don't have to set them all again next time you sync.
         2. Go through the options for each category again to make sure you've done it they way you wanted.
   4. The final step is to go back to the General button and then select Sync. It's at the bottom right of the window.
      1. The progress display isn't as informative as it was with iTunes.
      2. You can see a poor representation of the progress on the iPhone entry on the left side of the Finder window.
         1. It will display a circle on the right hand side of that row where the eject symbol was before you started the sync.
            1. The circle slowly fills as stuff happens. It does this twice.
            2. The old 6 steps that were clearly shown under iTunes are obscured.
               1. Instead the circle fills once for doing a backup of the iPhone to the M1
               2. And then again for all the syncing steps.

Marty_Macfly said:

Q1. Is there any way to download the music I bought years ago, from iTunes, onto the MacBook, using just apple apps?

Marty_Macfly said:

Q2. For the other music on my iPhone, which I copied off CD's, how do I copy these onto my MacBook?

ThrowerGB said:

Q1: Depends on how you did your initial setup. You should have been able to choose between copying from either the old MBA or from Time Machine (if you were using it).
To copy music you've purchased from Apple onto your M1:

1. Open Music on the M1
2. Under the Account pull down, select View My Account.
3. This will allow you to see if you've properly set up with the Apple ID. Fix it if not, by following the prompts.
   1. Note that if you purchased with different Apple IDs, you'll need to Authorize your M1 with each of the Apple IDs you've used in the past.
   2. Authorize is also a selection under the Accounts pull down.
4. Once you have all your Apple ID's authorized, go to Accounts pull down again and you will see selections for Purchased and for Check For Available Downloads
   1. You can play with each of these. You should be able to download what you've purchased in the past using each of the Apple IDs you've authorised.
   2. If you still can't see any of your songs, try calling Apple Support.

Q2: Apple has made a mess of the conversion from iTunes to Music. The instructions aren't clear and they haven't done a good job of segregating iTunes info from Music info. So no wonder you're having a hard time finding info. The new way to sync music between iOS, iPadOS and MacOS devices is done within the Finder within MacOS. What I discuss below is syncing between Catalina and the 14.x versions of iOS. I don't know if it's the same under Big Sur. And I don't know if under Big Sur you can sync to an old version of iOS. So:

1. Plug in your iPhone to your M1.
   1. it goes much faster if you're using a Thunderbolt cable instead of a USB cable.
2. Make sure both devices are turned on and unlocked.
   1. At some point you're M1may ask you to unlock the iPhone.
3. Open a new Finder Window
   1. You should be able to see your iPhone listed on the left hand column of the Finder Window. Mine is listed under Locations in that column.
      1. It may take a few seconds to recognize the iPhone.
      2. Make sure you open the Window large enough to see everything. Some of the items you might want can be hidden if the Window isn't large enough.
   2. Select the iPhone.
      1. You'll see a new display in the Finder Window showing all sorts of options that are similar to what was displayed for syncing in the old iTunes..
   3. This piece now is important:
      1. You should see a row of about 10 buttons: General, Music, Movies, etc
      2. If you click on them you'll see different options for each category that control what is synced.
         1. If you choose an option within a specific category to not sync, It will remove items in that category from the iPhone.
            1. You could lose stuff from the iPhone this way.
      3. Set all of the options for each category. Yes, It's tedious.
         1. Those settings will persist so you don't have to set them all again next time you sync.
         2. Go through the options for each category again to make sure you've done it they way you wanted.
   4. The final step is to go back to the General button and then select Sync. It's at the bottom right of the window.
      1. The progress display isn't as informative as it was with iTunes.
      2. You can see a poor representation of the progress on the iPhone entry on the left side of the Finder window.
         1. It will display a circle on the right hand side of that row where the eject symbol was before you started the sync.
            1. The circle slowly fills as stuff happens. It does this twice.
            2. The old 6 steps that were clearly shown under iTunes are obscured.
               1. Instead the circle fills once for doing a backup of the iPhone to the M1
               2. And then again for all the syncing steps.

Hope this all helps.

Click to expand...

James_C said:

As others have already said. Once you sign into iTunes with the same Apple ID that you used to buy the songs in the first place, they should automatically appear in your Library, however you will still need to download them, to access them offline.

How did you get these files onto your iPhone in the first place. I presume you ripped them using iTunes on your PC and then connected your Phone to sync them across.

If you still have access to these files on the PC, then go into your iTunes Media folder on your PC and copy all the folders in your music folder onto an external drive. Then connect the external drive to your Mac, Open the Music App and from the menu Choose File > Import and select the music folder on your external drive.

Make sure in Music Preferences > Files that Copy Files to Music Media Folder is checked on, unless you want to only have the files on your external drive (which would need to be connected to play the files)
View attachment 1703213

Click to expand...

ThrowerGB said:

Q1: Depends on how you did your initial setup. You should have been able to choose between copying from either the old MBA or from Time Machine (if you were using it).
To copy music you've purchased from Apple onto your M1:

1. Open Music on the M1
2. Under the Account pull down, select View My Account.
3. This will allow you to see if you've properly set up with the Apple ID. Fix it if not, by following the prompts.
   1. Note that if you purchased with different Apple IDs, you'll need to Authorize your M1 with each of the Apple IDs you've used in the past.
   2. Authorize is also a selection under the Accounts pull down.
4. Once you have all your Apple ID's authorized, go to Accounts pull down again and you will see selections for Purchased and for Check For Available Downloads
   1. You can play with each of these. You should be able to download what you've purchased in the past using each of the Apple IDs you've authorised.
   2. If you still can't see any of your songs, try calling Apple Support.

Q2: Apple has made a mess of the conversion from iTunes to Music. The instructions aren't clear and they haven't done a good job of segregating iTunes info from Music info. So no wonder you're having a hard time finding info. The new way to sync music between iOS, iPadOS and MacOS devices is done within the Finder within MacOS. What I discuss below is syncing between Catalina and the 14.x versions of iOS. I don't know if it's the same under Big Sur. And I don't know if under Big Sur you can sync to an old version of iOS. So:

1. Plug in your iPhone to your M1.
   1. it goes much faster if you're using a Thunderbolt cable instead of a USB cable.
2. Make sure both devices are turned on and unlocked.
   1. At some point you're M1may ask you to unlock the iPhone.
3. Open a new Finder Window
   1. You should be able to see your iPhone listed on the left hand column of the Finder Window. Mine is listed under Locations in that column.
      1. It may take a few seconds to recognize the iPhone.
      2. Make sure you open the Window large enough to see everything. Some of the items you might want can be hidden if the Window isn't large enough.
   2. Select the iPhone.
      1. You'll see a new display in the Finder Window showing all sorts of options that are similar to what was displayed for syncing in the old iTunes..
   3. This piece now is important:
      1. You should see a row of about 10 buttons: General, Music, Movies, etc
      2. If you click on them you'll see different options for each category that control what is synced.
         1. If you choose an option within a specific category to not sync, It will remove items in that category from the iPhone.
            1. You could lose stuff from the iPhone this way.
      3. Set all of the options for each category. Yes, It's tedious.
         1. Those settings will persist so you don't have to set them all again next time you sync.
         2. Go through the options for each category again to make sure you've done it they way you wanted.
   4. The final step is to go back to the General button and then select Sync. It's at the bottom right of the window.
      1. The progress display isn't as informative as it was with iTunes.
      2. You can see a poor representation of the progress on the iPhone entry on the left side of the Finder window.
         1. It will display a circle on the right hand side of that row where the eject symbol was before you started the sync.
            1. The circle slowly fills as stuff happens. It does this twice.
            2. The old 6 steps that were clearly shown under iTunes are obscured.
               1. Instead the circle fills once for doing a backup of the iPhone to the M1
               2. And then again for all the syncing steps.

Hope this all helps.

Click to expand...

James_C said:

Martin,

There is another way, by subscribing to iTunes Match (currently £21.99 per annum). This basically will go through your music library in iTunes on your PC, identify any tracks you have ripped yourself and will match these with versions on Apple's servers. You can then download these on your new MBA. There are a potentially a few advantages :-

1. Tracks Apple successfully matches become available to your devices as 256 kbps AAC downloads, even if your original copy was of a lower quality. These files can be accessed from any device. Should you delete an original file from iTunes, the matched one can be downloaded. Unmatched files are uploaded from iTunes to iCloud Music Library, and can also later be downloaded should you need to, although they won't get an 'upgrade' in audio quality.

2. You have a mixture of Purchased Music and ripped tracks in your current PC Library. By copying all the tracks and downloading the ones that you bought in iTunes you have some risk of duplicating your music files (You can probably avoid this by removing any downloads from your new MBA first and then copying all your music from your PC or Phone Library).

3. Any further apple devices that you might have or buy in the future will automatically be able to access your ripped music via iTunes Match.

I find this very useful as I had a large collection of ripped CD's (probably a couple of hundred CD's) I have been using iTunes Match for many years, even though I also subscribe to Apple Music.

Click to expand...

ThrowerGB said:

Q1: Depends on how you did your initial setup. You should have been able to choose between copying from either the old MBA or from Time Machine (if you were using it).
To copy music you've purchased from Apple onto your M1:

1. Open Music on the M1
2. Under the Account pull down, select View My Account.
3. This will allow you to see if you've properly set up with the Apple ID. Fix it if not, by following the prompts.
   1. Note that if you purchased with different Apple IDs, you'll need to Authorize your M1 with each of the Apple IDs you've used in the past.
   2. Authorize is also a selection under the Accounts pull down.
4. Once you have all your Apple ID's authorized, go to Accounts pull down again and you will see selections for Purchased and for Check For Available Downloads
   1. You can play with each of these. You should be able to download what you've purchased in the past using each of the Apple IDs you've authorised.
   2. If you still can't see any of your songs, try calling Apple Support.

Q2: Apple has made a mess of the conversion from iTunes to Music. The instructions aren't clear and they haven't done a good job of segregating iTunes info from Music info. So no wonder you're having a hard time finding info. The new way to sync music between iOS, iPadOS and MacOS devices is done within the Finder within MacOS. What I discuss below is syncing between Catalina and the 14.x versions of iOS. I don't know if it's the same under Big Sur. And I don't know if under Big Sur you can sync to an old version of iOS. So:

1. Plug in your iPhone to your M1.
   1. it goes much faster if you're using a Thunderbolt cable instead of a USB cable.
2. Make sure both devices are turned on and unlocked.
   1. At some point you're M1may ask you to unlock the iPhone.
3. Open a new Finder Window
   1. You should be able to see your iPhone listed on the left hand column of the Finder Window. Mine is listed under Locations in that column.
      1. It may take a few seconds to recognize the iPhone.
      2. Make sure you open the Window large enough to see everything. Some of the items you might want can be hidden if the Window isn't large enough.
   2. Select the iPhone.
      1. You'll see a new display in the Finder Window showing all sorts of options that are similar to what was displayed for syncing in the old iTunes..
   3. This piece now is important:
      1. You should see a row of about 10 buttons: General, Music, Movies, etc
      2. If you click on them you'll see different options for each category that control what is synced.
         1. If you choose an option within a specific category to not sync, It will remove items in that category from the iPhone.
            1. You could lose stuff from the iPhone this way.
      3. Set all of the options for each category. Yes, It's tedious.
         1. Those settings will persist so you don't have to set them all again next time you sync.
         2. Go through the options for each category again to make sure you've done it they way you wanted.
   4. The final step is to go back to the General button and then select Sync. It's at the bottom right of the window.
      1. The progress display isn't as informative as it was with iTunes.
      2. You can see a poor representation of the progress on the iPhone entry on the left side of the Finder window.
         1. It will display a circle on the right hand side of that row where the eject symbol was before you started the sync.
            1. The circle slowly fills as stuff happens. It does this twice.
            2. The old 6 steps that were clearly shown under iTunes are obscured.
               1. Instead the circle fills once for doing a backup of the iPhone to the M1
               2. And then again for all the syncing steps.

Hope this all helps.

Click to expand...

Marty_Macfly said:

Didn't work with Section 2 I'm afraid:

1. Bad news - iPhone "non-apple-puchased" did not copy across to the macbook

James_C said:

Yep Sync via Itunes / Finder is one way only, it will only move music from your Mac to your iPhone. The reason is to prevent everyone from connecting their iPhone to someone else computer to 'share' tracks that they have ripped without copy protection.