How to back up downloaded music not purchased from Apple

Jimmymac1951 wrote:

My downloaded music plays on my phone, but does not appear to be backed up. Only purchased music shows as backed on iCloud.

You don't as it isn't part of the backup as outlined here What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support

They should already be stored in your itunes library on your pc or mac.

Apple doesn't provide a way to transfer such music from an iPhone's Music library to another phone or computer.

The original iPod synchronization model was strictly one-way: from a Mac's iTunes Library, to a hidden music area on an iPod. To back up your music library, you backed up your Mac. When Apple released devices capable of accessing the iTunes Store directly, without the aid of a computer, they modified the model a bit, so that iTunes synchronization would copy songs purchased from the iTunes Store back to the master iTunes Library on a Mac or PC. That was the exception that proved the rule.

There are some third-party applications that supposedly can get music off of an iPod, iPhone, or iPad. Even those applications require a computer to run on.

Jimmymac1951 wrote:

Thanks for the prompt reply. My concern is that I am planning to buy a new iphone - how can I get my music transferred to the new phone? I have it on a flash drive, but no longer have the pc nor do I have a mac.

You don’t. You will need a PC or Mac. You will have to import the music from the flash drive to the music library on the computer, then sync it to the phone.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, confirming what I had feared.

I say this because I have/had about 12,000 songs that are mine, not Apple’s, they are mine, and many are original works or otherwise irreplaceable. Every time I let iTunes sync iPhone, I lose thousands of songs, the last time I lost 9,000, AppleCare worked hard, but no luck.

So it seems. the only way to back my music up, is to sync with iTunes, and if I sync, I will lose many before I am able to back them up. So unless there are any new ideas, it looks like I am headed toward third-party territory for a solution.

[Edited by Moderator]

It should, yes.