Use iTunes to Share Excel Files Between Windows and iPhone/iPad

I've been using iTunes on my Win platform for many years. I still buy music there, and I transfer it, along with my Outlook calendar to my iPhone/iPad. I use MS Excel a lot and transferred Excel files from my PC to my Apple devices with the 'File Sharing' feature in iTunes.


At one point several years ago there was some type of note that Apple may stop allowing the transfer of the Outlook calendar info to the iPhone, so I stopped updating iTunes. A few days ago I was a bit aggressive in trying to update a device driver on my PC, and I bricked it. While I had a viable system backup I could use, I went for a Win11 refresh which kept all my user files in tact. I was back and running with less than 6 hours of work. I have no idea what version of iTunes I had been using.


The problem was that I had to download an iTunes update (version 12.13.6.1). It picked up all my iTunes files just fine. However when syncing just now I looked at the File Sharing option, and Excel is not listed as an app that can be shared. I have Excel on my phone and PC. I can't find a way to add the Excel app to the list of apps in File Sharing. I liked that route for file sharing as opposed to cloud solution.

iPhone 13 mini, iOS 18

Posted on Mar 18, 2025 08:27 AM

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Posted on Mar 18, 2025 09:17 AM

I don't think there is any end user control over which apps are presented in the File Sharing area of iTunes. Either the app advertises itself or it doesn't. You can try sharing something with iTunes from the device to see if that changes things, otherwise you'll have to get used to using the cloud route, which works well enough with iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.


tt2

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 18, 2025 09:17 AM in response to texgeekboy

I don't think there is any end user control over which apps are presented in the File Sharing area of iTunes. Either the app advertises itself or it doesn't. You can try sharing something with iTunes from the device to see if that changes things, otherwise you'll have to get used to using the cloud route, which works well enough with iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.


tt2

Mar 18, 2025 10:22 AM in response to turingtest2

OOOPS!!! I am so sorry. I have an iPhone and an iPad. I normally just do Excel stuff on the iPad. While I've had the Excel app on my iPhone, I must have deleted it. I just reinstalled it, connected it to iTunes, and voila, the Excel app showed up under the File Sharing options.


Sorry again. I wish I could delete this thread, but I don't see a way to do that. Hopefully this will help some other dummy!

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Use iTunes to Share Excel Files Between Windows and iPhone/iPad

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