From CDs and iTunes to your iPhone
You spent years ripping CDs into iTunes. Then you set up a new iPhone and found six songs waiting for you.
Nothing is broken and nothing is lost. Your collection is sitting exactly where you left it, and moving it across is a solved problem once you know what you are looking at.
Why a new iPhone leaves your CDs behind
Section titled “Why a new iPhone leaves your CDs behind”Setting up a new iPhone restores what Apple can account for. iTunes Store purchases are tied to your Apple Account, so they download again on any device you sign into.
Your CD rips were never part of that. Ripping wrote plain audio files onto your computer’s drive. Those files belong to you, not to an account, so nothing carries them across on their own.
That is the whole explanation. Six songs transferred because six songs came from Apple.
Where your files are right now
Section titled “Where your files are right now”Find the files before you pick an import method. Most collections turn up in one of a few places.
On your computer. The iTunes and Music apps keep everything in a media folder inside your Music folder. On a Mac, look in Music. On Windows, look in Music, then iTunes. You will see folders by artist, then by album, holding the actual audio files.
On an external drive. Plenty of large collections were moved off the internal drive years ago. The folder structure is usually the same one iTunes built.
In cloud storage. iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or a network share you have connected in the Files app. Most of this can reach BitDek, but the route depends on the provider. iCloud Drive and Dropbox can be added as source folders you re-import from. Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box do not offer folder picking to any third-party app, so those go through the Share Extension instead. Cloud storage providers covers each one.
Knowing the format helps too. CDs ripped in iTunes are usually ALAC or AAC, while rips from other software tend to be FLAC or MP3. BitDek plays all of them, and Supported audio formats has the full list.
What does not work
Section titled “What does not work”Plugging your iPhone into a computer will not move music into BitDek. Finder and the Apple Devices app sync with Apple’s Music app only, and third-party players have no access to that sync path. iOS does not offer it.
Every route below avoids the cable entirely.
The four ways in
Section titled “The four ways in”BitDek gives you four import methods. Match the one that fits where your files are.
| Your situation | Use this |
|---|---|
| A large collection on a computer or external drive | WiFi Transfer |
| Music you bought from the iTunes Store, or iTunes Match downloads | Music App |
| Files in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or on the iPhone itself | Source Folders |
| Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, or any few files in the Files app | Share Extension |
You can mix them freely. Duplicate detection skips anything that already arrived, so a second pass costs you nothing but time.
About the Music App route
Section titled “About the Music App route”This one comes with a real limit. BitDek imports the music you own, meaning iTunes Store purchases and downloaded iTunes Match tracks. Apple Music subscription songs are protected and stay in the Music app.
Tracks still in iCloud need downloading in the Music app first. The picker greys them out until they land on the device.
For someone whose CD rips went into iTunes on a computer, this route brings across the purchases and leaves the rips behind. It solves half the problem. WiFi Transfer solves the other half.
Why WiFi Transfer suits a big collection
Section titled “Why WiFi Transfer suits a big collection”WiFi Transfer turns your iPhone into a small web server on your home network. You open an address in your computer’s browser and drag folders onto the page.
Why it suits hundreds of albums:
- No cable and no cloud account. Files go straight from your computer to your phone across your own network.
- Folder structure survives. Drop an Artist/Album tree and BitDek matches
cover.jpgfiles to the tracks beside them. - You can watch it work. Every file gets a progress bar in the browser, with running totals and a clear mark on anything that failed.
- The screen stays awake. While WiFi Transfer is running, your iPhone will not auto-lock, so a long upload does not need you tapping the screen to keep it alive.
That last one is doing more work than it appears to. iOS suspends apps shortly after the screen locks, and a suspended app stops importing. No other import method holds the screen on for you, so a phone that locks itself halfway through a big transfer will cost you the rest of the session.
What to expect on a long import
Section titled “What to expect on a long import”A few hundred albums takes a while, so it is worth setting up properly before you start.
Keep BitDek on screen and plug the phone in. The screen-awake behavior only holds while BitDek is the app in front of you, though you can move around inside it as much as you like and browse or play music while the import runs. Leave for the home screen and iOS suspends BitDek shortly afterwards, which pauses everything. Sustained transfers and metadata extraction also drain a battery faster than you would expect.
Stepping away briefly is fine. Come back and a paused import picks up where it stopped, even after the phone has been asleep for a while. Only a long absence risks iOS clearing the app out of memory, and even then nothing you already imported is lost. Every track that arrived stays in your library, and running the same import again is safe, because duplicate detection skips what you already have.
Check the Import Summary when it finishes. It sits on the Import Music screen and reports tracks processed and albums created, plus skipped files and data quality warnings when there are any. Compare the track count against what you sent. Those totals add up across imports until you tap Clear, so clearing before a big run makes the numbers describe only that run. A cancelled import can leave the count short, and that is much easier to spot on the day than six months later.
Still have the discs?
Section titled “Still have the discs?”If your CDs are in a box in the closet and the rips are gone, start fresh with a quality rip. Our guide to ripping CDs to FLAC covers secure ripping, AccurateRip verification, and which drives hold up.
Rip to a folder on your computer, then bring the folder over with WiFi Transfer.
Before you import
Section titled “Before you import”Two things worth knowing first:
- Where your music lives explains what BitDek does with a file once it arrives, and why it keeps its own copy rather than reading yours in place.
- Understanding audio file metadata explains why some albums import beautifully and others arrive scattered.
Next step
Section titled “Next step”Import methods overview compares all four in detail and has a video walkthrough. Pick the row that matches your situation from the table above and start there.