iPhone Tip: Transfer App Purchases from iPhone to iTunes

by Simon Ng on August 8, 2009

Say, you have purchased an application on iPhone. When you’re back home, you put the iPhone into the dock or plug it via USB cable and sync it with iTunes. You expect iTunes take care everything and sync all data including the application you have just purchased from iPhone to your computer. However, in some rare occasions, iTunes doesn’t work as expected. It just can’t sync the app from iPhone to iTunes.

Or one day, your computer is crashed and you lose all data including all the paid iPhone applications or songs purchased via iTunes store. Now, your iPhone is the only place containing those paid apps and songs. Is there any way to transfer them back to iTunes of another computer?

If you encounter these situations, try to use “Transfer Purchase” feature on iTunes.

1. First, connect your iPhone with the computer as usual

2. Launch iTunes

3. Right-click on your iPhone and select “Transfer Purchases”. iTunes will then start to transfer all the purchased applications from iPhone.

iTunes - Transfer Purchases

4. Wait until the transfer process completes and go to the “Applications” tab. You should find the application there!

iTunes - Application Tab

Furthermore, if you normally sync applications to your iPhone from one computer and then connect it to iTunes on another computer, iTunes will not sync applications from that iTunes library. In this case, you can also use the above method to transfer paid applications.

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Tagged as: App Store, iPhone, iPhone Tips, itunes

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Anp August 8, 2009 at 7:59 am: hi simon,
your tutorial is very explanatory……now i have a doubt…..i have around 50 apps downloaded using iTunes, but i dont have all of them on my iPhone….coz i dont use them regularly so i just unchecked them when i synched my iPhone….so they are stil there in my iTunes account…
My old comp has crashed so i have synced with a new comp and i have transferred the apps in the iPhone to the iTunes in my new account in the new comp
….is there a way to retreive the other apps (present in iTunes in old comp) which i had purchased but havent got synched to my iPhone with my iTunes in my old comp?
thanks…

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2 John August 24, 2009 at 5:18 am: Hi Simon,
What if I purchased an app on my computer via itunes and want to put that app onto my iphone? I thought syncing the phone would do that automatically it doesn’t seem to be working.
John………

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3 Amanda October 26, 2009 at 4:56 pm: Hello,
I was just wondering… when I do that transfer purchase thing, i just doesn’t work on mine, I have over 59 apps on my itouch and not a single one was downloaded on itunes, so my comp crashed an i haven’t sync my pod for a week… what should i do?

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