How To Redownload iTunes Purchases on your Iphone/PC

 

It seems like both Apple and iTunes get a lot of bad press for some of their policies so I thought I’d share a positive experience that I had with iTunes today.

This past weekend my husband revamped my computer and installed a new version of Windows for me – goodbye Vista!! He asked me several times if I’d backed up everything that I needed to keep. I went through my hard drive and thought that I’d gotten everything. I remembered to back up my apps but wouldn’t you know it I forgot to make a copy of my iTunes library. WHOOPS. Since the husband had turned my computer into a “new machine” I was now dealing with a brand new iTunes library. This caused trauma when I tried to sync up my phone and my daughters’ iPod Nanos because where there once was music and videos there was now nothing. Luckily the majority of our music was stored on our home server but there were plenty of videos that I’d purchased through iTunes that were nowhere to be found. I’ll admit that I panicked when I thought of having to explain to my son why there was no Phineas and Ferb next time we got stuck in a waiting room. So I did what I usually do in a panic – I googled. I stumbled upon blog posts explaining how to redownload purchases from iTunes, even though their policy states that music and video can only be downloaded once. I gave it a try last night and had the best customer service experience. I had an email within twelve hours telling me that Apple would let me redownload my purchase history. So as we speak I’ve got a disgusting amount of items downloading in iTunes right now.

Here’s how I did it. Go to the support site for iTunes, here’s the link. Now you’ll want to click on the description of what you need help with – I clicked on “video purchases”, then “lost purchases”. At this point an “Email” button appeared on the screen so I clicked on that and was taken to a form to fill out. You’ll need to provide your iTunes account information as well as the names of the items you’re missing. I also included a description of why I was asking for help. I admitted it was my fault that the items weren’t backed up but asked if there was anyway Apple could help me out. Most importantly (at least to a mom) I was polite in my request. Well, it worked and I’ve learned a lesson to always make a copy of your iTunes library.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll have the same experience but I wanted to let people know that Apple’s not heartless. They do take pity on those who let their husbands near their PCs without backup.

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