I tried synching my iPhone with iTunes on my PC; it deleted all non-purchased content from my phone.

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Level 1

4 points

I tried synching my iPhone with iTunes on my PC; it deleted all non-purchased content from my phone.

I tried synching my iPhone with iTunes on my PC; it deleted all non-purchased content from my phone. I have an iPhone 14 pro and a Windows 11 PC. I decided to set up my PC to synch iTunes with my phone, like I used to do quite some time ago. It used to work. But now, it instead deleted all the music I had in my library from my phone that I hadn't purchased from the Apple music store. And obviously, deleting files from someone's device is completely unacceptable and in my opinion is not only unethical but also illegal.

Anyway, I'd like to know how this can be fixed. Nothing is backed up to iCloud that I hadn't purchased from the store, and so these things are available via Home Sharing (on those rare times Home Sharing actually works). I've put up with a lot of stupid quirks from Apple over the years, but deleting files from my device is absolutely not acceptable and I'd like to fix this.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help that may be offered.

iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Jul 11, 2025 07:45 PM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

277,723 points

Jul 11, 2025 11:30 PM in response to pthielen

Unfortunately there is no remedy, all we can offer is sympathy. It has always been the case that syncing from iTunes is a one way process, computer to device. You will at some point have not paid full attention to a warning that proceeding would replace any media on the device with the content of your local library. If the local library is empty then everything on the device, apart potentially from purchases, gets wiped. Had you stopped and asked questions we could have pointed you in the direction of advice such as that in Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community but now that the media is gone it is too late for that. Your only other option would be to retrieve the media from older computer backups or their original sources.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

277,723 points

Jul 15, 2025 01:47 AM in response to pthielen

Glad to hear things are not as bad as I suspected. See Sync iTunes content on PC with your devices - Apple Support for Apple's article on syncing with the content of your library. Perhaps you simply need to adjust your sync selections.

tt2

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Answer 3

pthielen Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 13, 2025 07:20 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I'm not sure if I explained everything very well. All the data is still on my PC, including the albums I imported from CDs. What happened was when I "synched" my iPhone with iTunes on my PC I found it had deleted all non-iTunes purchased content on my iPhone, but it is still on my PC. I'm hoping to find a way to get that content on my iPhone, like it was originally. Hopefully I'm making better sense.

Thanks much!

Is there a way I can attach a backup disk, like my Lacie external drive, to my iPhone and just copy the missing content over? I kinda doubt it, as it is formatted for my PC and not my Mac. I do have a MacBook; perhaps I could somehow get it on the Mac and from there back onto the phone. I'm just at a loss at this point.

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