Okay. I thought I was pretty good with tech, but apparently not. My question - can you put music on your iphone that was not purchased on itunes? When I sync my phone that is the only music from my itunes library that transfers. I have other stuff, copied from cds legally that won’t transfer. There must be some way to get this onto the iphone, or access it through the iphone, but I’m stumped.
When I google or go to iphone help pages, I can’t follow the instructions. Though embarassed, I’m asking you guys for help.
Yes. you can, but you have to do a few things.
put your “downloaded”/ripped tunes in a folder. Call it “not-itunes”
fire up itunes and add that folder to the library. wait for it to sync.
plug in your iphone, which will now be visible in itunes.
drag and drop the tunes from your “not-itunes” folder (from within itunes) onto the music folder of your iphone.
wait for the sync, and BAM! you are done!
The music does need to be in iTunes before you can put it on your iPhones, but it does not need to have been purchased there. It should be easy to move whatever songs you want into iTunes. Drag and drop, and you’ll be good to go.
From your OP, it’s not clear whether the music you want is or is not already in iTunes. If it is, the next time you plug in your iPhone, after iTunes starts up and you see your phone on the left-hand panel, click on it to view the Summary page for your phone. Check to see whether you are manually managing your music or not. If you are manually managing your music, then you can drag-and-drop whichever music you please onto your phone from iTunes and all will be good. If you are not manually managing your music, then click on the Music tab near the top to see which things iTunes is trying to sync to your phone. You and choose to sync all of your music or pick and choose specific playlists, artists, and albums to sync.
If the music you want is not already in iTunes, follow the instructions from the previous posts first and then have a look at how you have your music choicse configured.
Have fun.
thanks guys - it’s getting to the screen where I can manually manage the music that has been troublesome in the past. I will try it again tonight.
again, thanks. and if anyone has further tips to add, thanks to you too!
You don’t even need to move your music around - just point iTunes to where your non-iTunes music is in the “Add Folder…” menu item. Also, depending on how much music you have, you may want to make sure you’re not syncing your music when you connect your iPhone.
Munch - oh I have LOTS of music on my computer (again legally obtained from other sources than itunes); only need/want part of the collection on my iphone.
As stated, it doesn’t need to be procured or ripped thru iTunes, but it needs to be in the iTunes library-- you can import stuff through the File menu, which has an Add Folder (and I think Add File) item. You could also drop the files into your iTunes folders and it will pick them up next time iTunes starts, although I find doing it thru iTunes to be easiler to keep track of.
Also worth note – files you’ve imported don’t have to be in the iTunes folder in your file system (e.g. Windows) as long as you’ve told iTunes where to find them. However, there’s an option somewhere (Consolidate filed, or maybe “Keep music organized”) that if checked (which may be the default) will make a copy of everything you’ve imported to iTunes to your iTunes folder. If you’ve got a lot of stuff and/or you want to keep it organized in a different way, make sure you uncheck this (sorry I can’t remember specifics) or else it will take up a lot of additional hard drive space by making redundant copies. (I actually like it – it makes transferring the libraries when you get a new computer a lot easier because it’s all in one place, but YMMV.)
–Cliffy
Cliffy - that happened to me once - the redundant copies taking up space on the hard drive. very hard to clean up. but I appreciate any & all thoughts on this subject. still learning tech.
If you are running Windows, do a search for music files, and then sort it.
When you find a dupe…BOOM!
Once you have all your music showing up on iTunes, I think the absolute best thing you can do is set up a playlist in your main iTunes library called “iPhone” which you maintain. Or if you want a core set of music, along with anything that would rotate through, set up an “iPhone Core” playlist, and any smartlists you want (clearly labeled), and then drag/drop those over to your iPhone.
If you don’t want redundant copies, the setting you have to be aware of is under Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced. The option to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library” should be unchecked if you don’t want duplicates. Screen shots are available on the Apple Support page:
You’ll notice Apple seems to think it’s a good idea to have this option checked, so that may be the default (I don’t recall). Leaving it unchecked will leave your music files where they are, and simply store a pointer to them in your iTunes library (which sounds like your preference).