If you have some items purchased in your iPhone or iPod Touch, and you want to transfer these items from iPhone or iPod Touch to iTunes. You can transfer these items to any iTunes/computer that is authorized by iTunes Store user name and password.
See also: Transfer iPhone Pictures to PC Windows 7
- First you need to authorize the computer to transfer purchased apps from iPhone or iPod Touch.
Run iTunes and Click on Store menu and then Authorize Computer (for Windows users if File menu is hidden then press the Alt+F keys from keyboard first, this will show the menu bar).
- This will prompt for the account information, enter the user name and password to authorize the computer.
This will start Access iTunes Store… wait for a while.
If computer is already authorized, you will get this message, Click OK button.
- Now connect you iPhone or iPod Touch to computer and Click on File menu then Devices > Transfer Purchases…
If you have older version of iTunes you will find this option directly under File menu.
-OR-
Simply Control+Click (Mac) or Right click (Windows) on iPhone or iPod Touch device icon and select Transfer Purchases (if the sidebar is hidden and you can’t see you device listed then press Ctrl+S keys to show sidebar).
This will start transferring purchased as well as free items from iPhone or iPod Touch to your Computer.
All purchased and free items from your iPhone or iPod Touch transferred to your iTunes/Computer, lets see where iTunes saves the apps.
On the left side Click on Applications menu under Library section and then Control+Click on application > Show in Finder (Mac) or Right Click on application > Show in Windows Explorer (Windows). This will open the folder where iTunes saves the apps.
Using this guide you can transfer your apps to a new computer, from one computer to another, to iTunes, to iPod Touch, from PC to Mac and more…
Feel free to ask question about transferring your iPhone or iPod Touch data to Computer, if you have successfully transferred your data leave some comments below.
View Comments (88)
Thanks trickyguy you are awesome, finally i have saved my iPhone application in computer that purchases from app store.
Its not transferring my all purchases from iphone
Make sure you are using the same login info. that you have used during purchasing application.
I'm having the same problem. I've only ever used 1 itunes account but it still will not retrieve all of my apps (including both free and purchased ones)
Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated
You can try about the FonePaw iOS Transfer which can transfer purchases from iPhone to iTunes. And it's easier to use. You can also transfer contacts, songs, SMS, videos etc between iPhone/iPad/iPod and computer or iTunes.
Nice iTunes tips.
all well and good, but how do you transfer the apps from itunes to ipod?
click on your ipod in itunes on the left side, then click sync in the bottom right corner.
hey, i wanna update my ipod touch version to the 4 OS. if the purchased app in my ipod touch transfered to pc, how to transfered it back to ipod touch after i update the version. thanks!
After updating to iOS 4, connect you iPod Touch to computer
Run iTunes and click on Apps section on the left side and see if all required apps are available in it, otherwise drag and drop all saved apps to iTunes.
Now click on your device icon on left side in iTunes
Click on Apps tab
Select apps that you want to transfer back in iPod Touch and hit the Sync/Apply button
Hi there
Basically, I haven't synced my ipod touch for ages due to the hard drive on my laptop being small and constantly low on space.
I recently purchased a new external hard drive and have transferred my itunes library onto it. However, I have approximately 300 apps on my ipod, and when i click transfer purchases, not all of them (about 120) appear in the apps library in itunes (some free and paid apps have transferred whilst some have not).
One of the reasons for doing all this is so i can upgrade to iOS 4, but I dont want to do this until I know that I will be able to re-sync all my apps afterwards.
Is there anyway that I can get the rest of my apps off my ipod into itunes or will they all be there when I come to sync after updating? Does apple keep a record somewhere of the apps you have downloaded - both free and paid - so you can download them all again without having to select them individually - 120 apps would take a long time)
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Just to clarify, 120 apps are not appearing - my apps library says I have 180.
Also, I just noticed that when I click transfer purchases, the toolbar at the top says the missing apps are transferred but they still fail to appear in the library
Click on Apps section in iTunes and right click on any App and select Explore option, this will open up the folder where all apps copied. Check out how may apps are there and backup them if you want.
When I do this, there is only 183 apps - still approximately 120 missing
Do you know of anyway that I can get the remaining apps off my ipod or will they be copied when I sync it? As I said above, I don't really want to have to go through all 120 apps and download them individually
Did you ever figure this out? I am having the same problem and cannot tale it anymore. I have followed all the instructions to no avail.
Thanks.
Mohara
I was trying things for ages but nothing I could find would work. Whenever someone suggested a program to download and use (quite a few were suggested to me on yahoo answers when I posted a question about it), their replies always looked a bit dodgy and suspicious - so I avoided doing that.
In the end I decided to give up trying and to just go for it. I had read in places that sometimes apple will let you download all the apps again (both free and paid) if you explain your situation (although they say this is an exception and that they don't normally allow it).
I did one last sync but they were still not appearing so i just proceeded to update the software. As far as I can see there has been no issues and I think all of my apps are there - although they still don't appear in Itunes
Hope this helps
I had this same problem! I called Apple and this is what they told me to do... Go into the same iTunes account that you made your purchases and purchase them again. If you start searching for your missing stuff in iTunes or the App store it should just say "Install" and you can reinstall it. Otherwise, buy it again and even if it tells you that you already purchased it and asks if you want to purchase it again, do it...you won't be charged again. Now, I'm sure you are saying "I can't remember all 120 apps I'm missing" So according to Apple you log into iTunes, at the top right click on your email address and log into your account, click on your purchase history and it will sort ALL of your purchases by date. I'm sure there is an easier way, but I went through my entire purchase history and made a list of the missing items by searching for each one on my ipad in this case. Then I went into the App store, iTunes, etc and searched for the missing items and re-downloaded them. It didn't really take as long as it sounds and I got all my stuff back, so it's all good! Good luck!
Thank you! This was very helpful.
Great help!! thank you!!
THANK YOU...finally found an easy way to do this instead of downloading something and going through all kinds of stuff to figure this out. I probably could have done it myself but I'm too impatient to actually explore iTunes. ;) THANKS again!
Worked great! After a few hours of frustration trying to transfer things from the iTouch to iTunes on a new computer this was successful! Didn't have to pay for software to do it either (which just makes sense). Thanks so much!!!