Restoring iPhone backup - iTunes Match

[V1N]

Hi there,

I wonder if anybody out there can answer me a question before I go about restoring my iPhone from a backup. It needs doing, it's running sluggish, there is a fair amount of unaccounted for space.. but the following issue has made me hesitate just backing up and restoring.

I use iTunes match.

If I connect my iPhone to iTunes via USB, and do a normal sync/backup, and then restore the iPhone with the backup, what does it do about the music?

Does it remember every song/album that was physically stored in the iPhone and redownload them all from iTunes match? In my case, that's about 20gb, and with my current connection would be less than desirable.

Does it remember every song/album that was physically stored in the iPhone, and restore them from the iTunes library for all tracks that are available on the local drive? (and then maybe download any missing tracks from the cloud)? This would be preferable for me, but can't see it working somehow.... especially if I have my own ripped version in my iTunes library, but the version in my phone came from Match?


Depending on how it restores music brings me to another question.
Is there a way to compare tracks currently stored in an iPhone to songs currently stored locally in an iTunes library?

If a standard restore doesn't copy the songs available back from the library, then what I'd like to do is to make sure that I remove any songs from my iTunes library that aren't currently in my phone, and also make sure that all songs in my phone are available in my iTunes library, so that after a restore I can just copy all the music back via USB.

I hope this makes sense to anybody reading.

Basically, my iTunes library does not represent my entire music collection.
What I used to do is to copy all the music I wanted in my phone to an iTunes folder, and just add them all to iTunes. If I wanted to add a new album to my iPhone, I'd copy the files to this iTunes folder, and if I wanted to delete an album from my iPhone, I'd physically delete the files from this folder also, not just untick them in iTunes.

This method worked perfectly for me until I started using iTunes Match. Since then I've deleted multiple albums from my phone to make room for apps, but they never got deleted from my iTunes library. I've downloaded albums from Match, which don't have a local copy in my iTunes library.

So rather than sit down for hours, with my phone in one hand and mouse in the other, scrolling through one album at a time to ensure that everything currently installed on my phone is also stored locally in my iTunes library, and nothing else, I was hoping there would be an easier way?

I realise that with iTunes match I don't need to store everything locally all the time, but I do have a lot of albums that I like to have on me all the time, and is handy for if I'm abroad without a Wifi connection, etc. So these "core" albums I'd like to keep on me all the time, and be able to restore them in case of problems with the phone.



So a summary is:-
When restoring an iPhone from a local backup, does it restore all the music that was stored in the iPhone from iTunes Match, or does it restore what it can from a library, and download the rest from Match, or does it maybe not download any music at all, and just leaves it up to you to download them again from Match?


and is there a way to compare songs stored in an iPhone to songs stored locally in the iTunes library?



Alternatively, I'll have to go through my library slowly, and just ensure that all my favourite albums and songs are stored locally, so that in case of error I can easily restore them, and the rest of my music, the less important stuff, can just be downloaded from match at will. I also hate when my favourite albums are "half matched" so I'd rather keep my own ripped copy on my phone, rather than have half ripped and half matched.

I hope this post makes sense to anybody reading... hopefully it will do to people who have experience using iTunes Match, because obviously ALL songs appear in both my iPhone and iTunes libraries, whether they're stored locally or not.

Hopefully somebody out there who uses match has done a restore of their iPhone/iPad/iPod/iWhatever, and can tell me what happens when you do a restore.

I'd also like to get this done in preparation of the iPhone 5 release, so that I can restore the contents of my current phone to the new one in the same way, rather than have to download them all with Match.

Thanks for reading, it's gone on a bit longer than I'd intended...

Kind regards,
Vin.

 

[V1N]

Thanks for the posts.

Yes, what I expected to have to do is to disable iTunes Match, sync local files with phone, turn iTunes Match back on.

But before I do this, I was hoping to find an easy way of comparing files locally stored in my phone, with files locally stored in my iTunes Library.

Before iTunes match, I used to sync 100% of my library with my phone, as it was kept completely separate from my server with ALL of my music on it.

Since switching to iTunes Match, I've deleted some of those albums that I don't need to have on me all the time, but they weren't deleted from iTunes. Also, almost every CD I've added since then I've immediately deleted the local files from iTunes, apart from the odd favourite.

If I were to restore my iPhone now and sync across my local files again, I'd likely not have enough space in my phone, due to having deleted a few GB of albums to make room for more apps... so these previously deleted albums would be resynced from my iTunes library, along with restoring all my apps, and I'd end up with an error.


All I was hoping to do, if a restore doesn't remember which songs were installed in the iPhone, is to find a way to compare lists... of songs in my iPhone with my iTunes library. Delete any albums that are in my iTunes library that are no longer in my iPhone, and maybe download the few that are in my phone, but not in my local iTunes library (though this part is less important)

If there's no easy solution, then I may just take a few hours, go through my iTunes library by hand and delete everything but my favourite bands, and keep this as a kind of Factory Reset... that way when I get the new iPhone, or run into problems, I can at least do a restore and have all my old favourites on there... there are a LOT of them, because I'm a huge music fan, and getting on a bit now

I guess this is one element where iTunes match is less than convenient.
In the past, when I had an issue with my iPhone, I could just "format" and restore it at any point, and after a few hours it would be exactly as I'd left it (but without the problems) All my music restored, everything.

Yes, I realise that the point of iTunes match is that you can get at your music any time, any where.... but there are some occasions where I'm out of Wifi or 3G range, and want to listen to a specific album, or roaming abroad, which is why I keep as much as I can on me, and the rest of it lives in the cloud to download at will. There are also many favourite albums that have unmatched tracks, so I'd rather restore my local rips of those, rather than download half/half copies from the cloud. I've also found a few Matched tracks that are corrupted from the cloud, and have remained so despite reporting it to Apple, so again, I need my local rips in my phone.


So basically, if I turn off iTunes match before I do the restore, and there's no easy way to compare what's physically stored in my phone with what's physically saved in my library, then yes, I'll have to go through the library by hand and fine tune it... then sync after the restore, and then turn iTunes match back on. At least if I do that once, it'll be good forever, and I'll keep deleting local copies of new albums that I rip, apart from the really best ones, so that in future I can always do a restore/buy a new device, and know that at least my favourite stuff will be on it from the start.


As an aside, if I connect my iPhone to iTunes, and click on it on the left of the screen, and then open the "folder structure" so you can see what music, books, films etc are on it (I mean the list going down the screen, not the tabs going across the screen at the top) then I can see the list of music currently stored in my phone.... this includes some tracks that I've deleted, and they have... like a reload icon beside them. I think these are tracks I've deleted, but that never physically got deleted, which is where some of my space has gone... but also, I was hoping I could use this list somehow to compare to my iTunes list to find out what to delete.... that's the main thing I want to do, delete local iTunes files that I've deleted off my phone since using iTunes Match, as these don't automatically get removed from the local iTunes library. It would be good if I could generate a smart playlist of tracks located in my iTunes library, and not located in my iPhone, but sadly I don't think smart playlists allow you to do this, and only work with iTunes libraries.


I'm not sure if you can see what I'm trying to do here. Probably not why, but we all have different needs and uses for our stuff. I tend to keep a large library of music on me all the time, but love iTunes Match because it means that those extra tracks that I maybe don't listen to often are still (nearly) always available. I was at a party a few months ago, and I ended up sending the DJ to the bar to have a beer for a while, after I realised I could hook my phone up to his equipment, and we enjoyed a good metal blast, much to the shock of many of the partygoers... I was delighted to have had the tracks on me that my mates and I wanted to hear. In that place we had no Wifi, and no 3G. I'd never have been able to download them... so you never know when having some lesser played, but still good older tracks on you will be of benefit. I have another party next weekend, I'd love to fix these lag and space issues with my phone, but not at the expense of losing some of the music beforehand. I wish there was a way to do a restore where it took note of what songs were in my iPhone at time of backup, and allowed me to restore them. After all, it will work with apps. They're downloadable again from the cloud, but if I do a restore, it will remember which ones I have installed, and transfer them from iTunes back to the phone afterwards. Yes, what I really need to be able to do is a sort of reverse-sync, where I do a backup/sync, and it transfers all music from the phone to my iTunes library, then I could do a restore, and put it back. Sadly, of course, this is not possible.

Judging from the remarks, my best solution will be to go through my library by hand, as mentioned above, trimming out the less important files, and keeping copies of half matched albums, and all my favourite bands. At least at the end of it I should find myself with many gigs of free space on the phone, and still have the ability to download any other albums I'd forgotten about afterwards from the cloud... and then even make a note of them, to download them to my library the next time I load iTunes, so that next time everything's ready.

Phew. Sorry for the long post. Thinking out loud really.
Doing a restore was DEFINITELY easier before iTunes Match though.
It's still a good service despite its quirks... like when I go to download some of my "Matched" songs, when they arrive they're my original MP3 CD rips, and not 256kbps AAC Matched files at all! Or every now and then when I log in it'll do a check for iTunes Match, and then suddenly another 10 or so tracks that had previously been matched are magically no longer matched, so it uploads my rips instead.

But it's still mostly good!

Thanks for trying to help.

IF I do the restore, I'll post what happens with my music. I gather from the posts above though that I could speculate that after a restore, everything will be on my phone except for music? Not one song will be located on my phone? Just a list of cloud files.... in which case, as I said, I'll turn off Match and sync my library, and then turn Match back on.

Cheers.

 

[V1N]

OK, I just had an idea.

What if.... sometime....

I disable iTunes Match on my phone.... or at least, set it to only display songs that are stored in the phone.

Create a new playlist on the phone, and add all.

Turn iTunes Match back on (if I disabled it)
iCloud will automatically sync my playlist, and it should appear on my iTunes window.

Now, because only local files were added to the playlist, I SHOULD now have a playlist of only locally saved iPhone songs.

I could then use smart playlist to do something... maybe IF a song exists in the library and doesn't exist in the playlist, then add to a new playlist... then I'd end up with a playlist of only songs in iTunes but not on my Phone, then I can just delete them.

Even if I can't do a smartplaylist, I'd at least have a list of locally saved iPhone songs to refer to... though I guess, frankly, it would be easier to just have the phone in one hand and a mouse in the other, and use the two separate screens to manually compare.

Anyway, just a thought.... as I recall that whenever I create a new Playlist on my phone, it syncs immediately with the cloud... therefore doing this with iTunes Match off would only generate a list of local music.

Vin.