Friday, November 20, 2015

How to backup iPhone music to iTunes?

Unless you purchased all songs form the iTunes Store, chances are that by now you are tearing your hair out trying to restore the CD songs you collected over the years back to your new empty iTunes library. If you have an iPhone, iPod or even an iPad containing some or all of your songs, you might be spared.

Restoring your iPhone music and playlists to an empty iTunes library is not difficult at all provided you know how to do it. It is surprisingly easy to bring your library back to its previous glory after a PC crash or after changing PCs. Learn more by following the steps below.

Let's transfer iPhone or iPod songs to iTunes

1. Download the program below to the PC where you have the empty or incomplete iTunes library:

2. Run the program and connect the iPhone or iPod with the USB cable. You'll see the iPhone songs and playlists display in the main program window.

main copytrans program window

TIP: Your iPhone songs are matched with the contents of the iTunes library on the PC and are automatically selected for backup. A green arrow icon next to the track means the track is selected for backup. A check-mark means the track already exists in iTunes and won't be transferred to avoid duplication. A circular icon means that the track in iTunes will be updated. Most commonly this will update the track artwork.

copytrans track status icons

3. Click "Start backup"

start backup button

4. The program now copies all the needed songs, playlists, podcasts, voice memos and even ringtones directly to iTunes on your PC.

backup of iphone songs in process

That's all. The songs are loaded back to the iTunes library. You've restored iTunes back to how you knew it before!

itunes library on windows
 

Copy iPhone music to iTunes - See the YouTube tutorial

 

This is how to backup iPhone music to iTunes.

Source: http://www.copytrans.net/support/how-to-transfer-music-from-ipod-to-itunes/

Friday, September 4, 2015

How to backup iPhone without iTunes before updating to iOS 9

On September 9, Apple will announce its new iPhone and the date for the public release of iOS 9. Previous years have shown that updating the iOS of iPhone or iPad devices is not totally free from incidents including failed upgrades, iTunes restore errors and data loss. Be sure to have a safe iPhone backup in at least two separate locations.

Follow this guide to get ready for an easy uneventful update to iOS 9.

How to backup iPhone without iTunes before the iOS 9 update?

iTunes is often blamed for elusive backup and restore error messages, and unneededly cumbersome features. While I keep my iPhone backed up with iTunes, many people don’t use iTunes on a regular basis and fear having their iDevice erased and synced.

CopyTrans Shelbee is a full-featured iTunes backup alternative that backs up the same iPhone contents as iTunes including iPhone contacts, messages, notes, calendars, iOS settings and passwords.

1. CopyTrans Shelbee is designed to work on Windows PC. Download the program from here:

2. Run the program and connect the iPhone to the USB slot of your PC

3. Click on “Backup”

copytrans shelbee program window

What I particularly like about this program is its ability to save the iPhone backup to a location of your choice, a feature missing from iTunes backups.

change itunes backup location feature in copytrans shelbee

For a full iPhone backup tutorial with CopyTrans Shelbee, refer to the page below:

Copy iPhone contacts, messages, calendars and notes to PC

If you care about your iPhone business contents, including contacts, messages and notes, keep a safe copy on a PC before you update to iOS 9.

To back up iPhone contacts, download and use CopyTrans Contacts from the page below.

copytrans contacts program window

Transfer music from iPhone to PC

Neither iTunes, nor iCloud back up songs and playlists on your iPhone. To back up iPhone music and playlists, follow this tutorial.

main copytrans window

Backup iPhone photos and albums before upgrading

Photos and albums outside the Camera Roll are not backed up by iTunes. To save your entire iPhone photo library, connect the iPhone to your PC and follow the instructions from the below tutorial:

iphone photos on windows pc

How to update to iOS 9?

Once iOS 9 is available for download and after having backed up your iPhone contents, open the iPhone settings and navigate to General > Software update. Then tap “Download and Install”.

iphone ios update settings

Follow these YouTube video instructions to see how to backup iPhone without iTunes in action.

This is how to backup iPhone before updating to iOS 9 without iTunes.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

How to export Outlook contacts to iCloud

The other day, a blog reader asked me an interesting question: “I work a lot with Outlook on my PC”, he said, “I manage all my work and personal email and contacts' accounts in Outlook on my Windows 8 computer. I have an iPhone that syncs with iCloud but none of my Outlook contacts are on my iPhone, nor in my iCloud account. How do I bring my Outlook contacts to iCloud?”

The bad news is that there's no direct way to connect iCloud with Outlook. The good news, however is that you can easily transfer Outlook contacts to iCloud by using your iPhone as a vector.

Here’s how to export Outlook contacts to iCloud

1. Open Outlook and check that all the contacts you wish to export to iCloud are there

outlook contacts on pc

2. Download CopyTrans Contacts – a program to transfer Outlook contacts to iPhone from the page below:

3. Start CopyTrans Contacts and connect your iPhone, iPad or even iPod Touch

4. Click on the button “Import contacts” from the top right of the main program window

copytrans contacts window with import contacts button selected

5. From the popup, choose “Outlook (direct import from Outlook)”

outlook direct import popup

6. Select the Outlook contact folder from where to import contacts

copytrans popup displaying outlook contact folders

7. If prompted, allow access to Outlook for 5 or 10 minutes

prompt to allow access to outlook on your pc

8. Select the contacts which to import and click “Import” at the bottom

popup with outlook contact list ready to be imported to iphone

9. The contacts are now imported to the local memory of your iPhone. Now, it’s time to move them to iCloud

main program window listing iphone contacts

10. Connect your iCloud account with CopyTrans Contacts by navigating to More > Cloud setup

cloud setup option from drop-down menu

11. From the new window that opens, click “New connection” then click “iCloud”

new connection icloud account

12. Enter your iCloud account credentials and click “Add account”

add icloud account to copytrans contacts

13. Close the Cloud setup window and let CopyTrans Contacts finish loading your iCloud account information

14. Select all the Outlook contacts that you previously imported to your iPhone and right-click on the selection. Choose “Move to > iCloud”

move to option in program

15. Hang on until the program imports the selected contacts into iCloud.

all contacts have been moved successfully

This is how to import Outlook contacts to iCloud in just a few clicks of the mouse button.

outlook contacts appearing in icloud

Click here to download CopyTrans Contacts.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

How to change iTunes Store Country

Many people have asked me how to change the country of their iTunes store. In fact, this is easy to do contrary to common belief that you have to create a new account with a separate Apple ID.

Here's how to change iTunes store country in a few clicks

1. Open iTunes and click on "Sign in".

sign in to itunes store

2. Enter your Apple ID and password and click "Sign In"

itunes log in window

3. Click on "Account"

account info itunes

4. When in your account details, click on the "Change Country or Region" link

5. Select your new country from the list and click "Change"

change country from store

6. From the next screen, click "Continue"

click continue to new itunes store

7. Accept the new store terms and conditions

accept terms and conditions

8. Add the new payment method associated with your new country and click "Continue"

add new payment method for apple id

That's all. You have just changed the iTunes Store country.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

How to move iTunes backup folder to another drive?

This quick article helps you change the default iTunes backup location to another drive.

Your main PC disk is where iTunes keeps iOS backup files. The backup files can often take over the little remaining available storage. Many folks have limited free space on their PC. The last place where you want to keep the bulky iOS backups is on your SSD C:\ drive. Read on to find out how easy it is to change the iTunes backup folder.

Here’s how to change the location where iTunes keeps iOS backups

1. First get CopyTrans Shelbee on your PC and run the program. This program will help you automatically change the iTunes backup location to a place of your choice. Click the link below to download CopyTrans Shelbee:

2. From the main program window, click on the "Toolbox" button.

main copytrans shelbee window with toolbox button

3. Click on the icon represented by a pencil to select the new iTunes backup location

select location where to move itunes backup folder

4. Click "Start" to begin the move

start move ios backup folder with copytrans shelbee

5. The move will take a moment.

moving itunes backup folder contents in progress

4. That's it. Your iTunes backup location was changed to the destination of your choice. All the contents of the iTunes backup folder were moved to the new folder.

success at getting ios folder changed

Manual method - requires skills in using Windows Command Prompt

1. First go to your existing iOS backup location which is found in the MobileSync folder. To access the location directly, press the Start Menu button and in the search box type in:

%APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync . Then press the Enter button.

start menu search box

2. Once you are in the MobileSync folder copy the “Backup” folder to the new location of your choice.

copy and paste itunes backup folder from old location to new location

3. Make sure that the Backup folder was correctly copied to the new destination and delete the original one from the MobileSync folder.

4. Next, press and hold SHIFT on your keyboard and right-click on an empty space in the MobileSync folder. Choose “Open command window here”.

start command prompt from explorer window

5. In the black window, enter the following command by typing it in (no copy/pasting, otherwise the command won’t execute)

mklink /J “%APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup” “X:\Backup”

Note that you need to replace “X:\Backup” from the above command to the actual location where you copied the Backup folder to.

junction command text in cmd black window

6. Hit enter and watch the command execute. Once you see “Junction created” you are good to go.

junction command executed successfully in command prompt window

A folder named “Backup” appears in the original MobileSync location. This folder at first sight appears as a regular shortcut. This, however is more than a shortcut (it’s called Junction) and is enough to “fool” iTunes into thinking that the Backup folder is intact and remains at its original location.

effects of junction symbolic link on windows

Instead, you just moved the space-hungry iTunes Backup folder to a more convenient location. The next time you back up your iPhone with iTunes, the iPhone backup files will be saved directly to the new location.

Video guide – change iOS backup folder to another drive

This is how to move iTunes backup folder to another drive.