Retrieving itunes purchases

Dogfood09 · 13 Jun 2010 at 18:54

Guys ,

Last year i bought an ipod touch , made some purchases etc , about 4 months ago i sold on the touch , now i have just got an iphone , installed itunes back on , logged into my old account , under purchases i can see all the item i had brought , but how do i re-download them for my iphone??

Regards
Dog

Rroff · 13 Jun 2010 at 18:57

You can't - iTunes only allows you to download once. You can usually get support to reflag the entire account for re-downloading in the event of you "losing" your entire collection but its a one off thing once you used it you can't do it again (atleast not within a year).

FreeStream · 13 Jun 2010 at 19:00

You didn't keep the files on your computer?

If not then you've basically lost them apart from above!

OllyM · 13 Jun 2010 at 19:12

You can re-download apps that you've purchased free of charge.

theheyes · 13 Jun 2010 at 21:49

I've done it by contacting them. I'd be interested to know if anyone has done this more than once though.

Kol · 13 Jun 2010 at 22:14

Just re download the app - when it says buy it will inform you that you have already bought/paid for the app and if you want to re download it - I had to do this when my iPhone crashed once so don't take the above answers as gospel.

Feek · 13 Jun 2010 at 22:22

Apps - Yes (although it looks like it will charge you but it doesn't).
Music - No (you can grovel to Apple and they may allow you to download them again, this will only be allowed once).

I seem to remember iTunes being quite anal about reminding people to do backups in the past, those warnings are there for a reason.

smokedog · 13 Jun 2010 at 22:25

You can re-download but I think there is a limit (I think it's 5 times)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Rroff · 13 Jun 2010 at 22:28

smokedog said:
You can re-download but I think there is a limit (I think it's 5 times)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

That only works for apps.

For music or movies you can contact support, sometimes they will unlock individual/list of files with a "out of the kindness of their hearts won't happen again" clause but sometimes they won't, you can usually get the entire collection unlocked once per year if you claim to have "lost" it all but not sure if they have a limit on how many times they will do that year on year. (NOTE if you do this ALL previously downloaded files will stop working on new authorisations as they will blacklist your old DRM "key" and issue a new one so you will have to download every all over again - so don't use this to recover 1-2 files)

Kol · 13 Jun 2010 at 22:42

My bad - I have no idea why I thought it was simply apps, music didn't enter my mind! Ooops.