You purchased items from the iTunes Store and for some reason you lost all your songs and other contents library that were on your computer. And now the only place you have them stored is on your iPod or iPhone. Worry not! With iTunes 7 or later you can easily transfer all the songs from your iPod or iPhone to any computer that is authorized for your iTunes Store account. Here is a step by step instructions on how to do this.
Show me more…

The first thing before transferring your iPod or iPhone contents to the computer is to authorize your computer. This needs to be done even before connecting your iPod or iPhone to the computer.

  1. Open iTunes and from the Store menu chose “Authorize Computer”.
  2. A dialog box will appear in which the Apple ID button is select by default. If you have an AOL account select AOL.
  3. Enter your Apple ID or AOL screen name and password, then click the Authorize button.

NOTE: If you purchased from the iTunes Store using multiple accounts then you will need to authorize the computer for each one.

Now foolow these steps to transfer iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer:

  1. First connect your iPod or iPhone to the computer.
  2. If your iPod is synced with another iTunes library, the following dialog may appear.

    transfer-ipod-itunes-computer-1

  3. Click the Transfer Purchases button. iTunes will begin copying any purchases made with any account that the computer is authorized for.
  4. If you are not prompted by the dialog above, it could be that the option “Do not ask me again” was previously selected. Then you can do one of the following:
    • After connecting your iPod or iPhone to the computer and its icon appears in iTunes, you can choose Transfer Purchases from iPod from the File menu.

      transfer-ipod-itunes-computer-2

      OR

    • You can right-click (Windows or Mac) or Control-click (Mac only) your iPod in the iTunes Source list, then choose Transfer Purchases from the shortcut menu that appears.

      transfer-ipod-itunes-computer-3

Note that these steps will only help you restore content that you purchased from the iTunes store. Any items imported from audio CDs or acquired from other sources will not copy from your iPod or iPhone to the iTunes library.