iTunes help?

[d8mok]

Need a bit of assistance regarding iTunes and getting music onto a iPhone

So basically I’ve got a laptop that’s a couple of years old now which has iTunes installed and lots of music on there. I’ve not switched this laptop on in ages so let’s assume the iTunes is about 2-3 years old now.

I’ve got a IPhone XR which has never needed to be plugged in to the laptop as I’ve just used cloud for pics , updates etc.

I’ve now got to a point where my old iPod is dying a slow death so need to get my music off laptop onto my IPhone XR.

If I try to plug my phone into the laptop I get a error. Which I’ve researched as being there because my phone is on much newer software to the laptop. However if I try to update the software on laptop to a newer iTunes I get a error again to say it can’t be done.

Any ideas how to get the music across? Can it be moved to the cloud from laptop or any other simple method.

Thanks

 

[hamster]

Hmm, so in short the Laptop cannot run later software and the phone won't play ball.

First of all back up your music onto an external HDD. That at least then makes sure it's accessible in future.
You could stick it in iCloud, alternatively borrow a computer, authorise it to your iTunes account , load up the music into iTunes and the phone, then de-authorise the PC again.

Somebody else will probably know a less cack-handed approach.

 

[d8mok]

Re:

Thanks for the reply.

I’ve actually managed to sort it out late last night. Ended up updating the laptop , then iTunes and then managed to move the music across.

 

[legrandefromage]

There is 'another way' without itunes.

Your ipod is just a hdd, plug it in to any computer, seek it out, set the computer to 'show hidden files' - look for the ipod files and transfer the bleedin' lot to whatever mass storage device you have.

Modern phones usually have more than enough space and can read all ipod AAC files except for the early copy protected stuff but they stopped doing that some time ago.

 

[mrkawasaki]

Also be aware that the latest Mac OS updates ('Catalina') have dismissed the 'iTunes' library in favour of 'Music' - as I understand it they want to rid our mobile devices of large files and make us adopt streaming and of course the slow death that is subscriptions. If you update the software on the XR unwittingly, you're iTunes will probably disappear in front of your eyes...