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tomacwhite

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 1, 2009
191
51
England
Hi,
I had a quick look on the search but didn't find anything concrete, so..

After losing my iBook HDD and then my external backup drive (long story) I have bought a new Mac and its great etc etc. The problem I have is that I don't have a backup of my huge iTunes library, so I am re-importing all of my music.

I thought the process would be as simple for iTunes purchased music where I could go to my account and redownload it, but I can't seem to see an option for this.

Please could someone explain how I would go about redownloading all of my iTunes purchased music?

Thanks!
 

Silver80

macrumors newbie
May 7, 2009
6
0
I don't think you can mate sorry. If you sync your iPod, normally iTunes will reload the purchased songs back to your library but I think because its a new computer it won't.
There is a program called iPod Rip that will rip the songs on your iPod to your hard drive, then authorise your new mac to played stuff from your iTunes account and it should work (?).
If I remember right though, you may have to enter the artist, song titles for some of the stuff again. Btw iPod Rip is a free program so don't pay for it. Hope this helps.
 

txr0ckabilly

macrumors 6502
May 21, 2008
421
0
Southwest Louisiana
This is a bit on the dishonest side but. . .

I emailed support and told them I had a harddrive crash and lost everything. I had actually deleted (accidentaly) a bunch of albums when trying to make space on older harddrive.

Support let me redownload everything I had ever purchased from the iTunes music store. (minus the stuff that was no longer available). It was about 2000 downloads.

I was also given a warning that this was a one time offer and that I should back my library up because they would not allow it again.

Hope that helps.

It was kind of cool because I got an email from apple with a list of everything I had ever purchased. I never realized how much I had spent in the iTunes store.
 

tomacwhite

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 1, 2009
191
51
England
AWESOME NEWS!

Apple have replied to me, and I am currently redownloading all of my music from my iTunes account section. Superb stuff!

Thanks for the help everyone, I am very happy right now!
 

tomacwhite

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 1, 2009
191
51
England
Got something nice here..

I got another email from Apple asking if the reply I had got from them was helpful, and they wondered why I hadn't replied back to them!

..I never thought about emailing them back to say it had worked, but that's a nice idea and makes my problem feel more personal. It was the same guy replying back too, and he wanted to know how I got on.

I even emailed him a couple of days ago to get him to reset my authorisations on my iTunes account. He replied back quickly and had done it for me.

Ace service, very impressed!
 

Rich1963

macrumors 6502
Jul 18, 2008
259
0
Wow! After I read the first post, the phrase "you're screwed" went through my frontal lobe. That's great and kudos to Apple for doing that. By the way, I can see where they will do it for you once, but probably don't want to make it a regular thing. Way to go, Apple!
 

ipedro

macrumors 603
Nov 30, 2004
6,207
8,425
Toronto, ON
It's good to know we have that backup. Apple certainly doesn't advertise it and why would they? People would get careless and bandwidth costs them money.

This would, like in your case, be the last possible solution to retrieving a library of purchased music.

I got an obsessive backup strategy where only if the world to be end or a freak coincidence with odds better than the lottery would I lose my data.

Congrats mate. That was a close one.
 

erckle

macrumors newbie
Oct 24, 2009
1
0
To get customer service, I need to categorise my problem.

What category should I pick so that i can let apple know about my hard drive crash and the loss of all my purchases.
 

moolah

macrumors newbie
Sep 2, 2010
1
0
confused

what is the email adress that you use to ask them to re-download all your stuff because my computer crashed and i lost all my stuff aswel l:eek:
 

fintymackers

macrumors newbie
Sep 13, 2010
2
0
finding a email contact on apple support

any of you guys got a email address you used to contact apple? their website was leading round in circles trying to find one
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
It's an eye opener, isn't it? I have 102 GB in my "Purchased" playlist :eek:

I remember when the iTunes Store just started and had sold about 10 million songs, Steve Jobs said that someone had purchased over 36,000 songs. Was that you? :D
 

fintymackers

macrumors newbie
Sep 13, 2010
2
0
oh yeah GGJstudios cheers i was asking for an email address, not a URL

anyone got any other helpful replies
 

derekamoss

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2002
1,485
1,124
Houston, TX
After reading this thread I contacted Apple and told them I had lost my iTunes Media since 2003. My Laptop and ext HD was stolen in my berthing on my ship in 2009. *******s.... Anyways I contacted them and the allowed me to download everything I ever bought. They said I wouldn't be able to redownload movies but when I started the movies were all there. Needless to say its now a hassle, but a very happy hassle downloading them since i have to move them to my external HD because its somewhere in 200gb range of downloads. They were very friendly and personal. Kudos to apple.
That page shows all the methods of contacting Apple.
 

nastebu

macrumors 6502
May 5, 2008
354
0
Nota Bene

it is awesome that Apple will do this once. This happened to me once and they allowed me to redownload a bunch of songs.

But it isn't free for Apple. And it costs more than bandwidth. Apple pays the music publishers per download, so when you download the song a second time, Apple has to pay the music publishers as if it is a new sale.

That is to say, really, it probably will only be a one shot deal. The next time, expect a no.
 

derekamoss

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2002
1,485
1,124
Houston, TX
Where did you get that info? I'm not saying your wrong just i would like to see it. It does not make sense to me at all that apple would pay for me
re-downloading my content. I had always assumed that you couldn't
re-download because of the bandwidth it would use if everyone could download something they already purchased again.

But it isn't free for Apple. And it costs more than bandwidth. Apple pays the music publishers per download, so when you download the song a second time, Apple has to pay the music publishers as if it is a new sale.
 
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