iTunes suddenly doesn't see my iPhone

Question

Level 1

7 points

iTunes suddenly doesn't see my iPhone

As of 2 days ago, my iTunes (12.13.4.4) on Win10 (Pro 64bit) fails to recognise my iPhone 7 (iOS 15.8.3). It's always been unreliable recognising it over WiFi, which is annoying, but now it fails to recognise it even connected by USB, which is a deal breaker for me since I've always manually managed my content as Apple isn't transparent about how it would do it, and I want to organise my content MY way.

Windows Explorer can still see my iPhone and the photos on it, so my sync cable and lightning port seem to be fine. I'm not aware of any Microsoft or Apple updates since it last worked a few days ago, and the problem has persisted over rebooting.

Can anyone throw any light on this? Silent iTunes update?

Earlier iPhone models

Posted on Nov 22, 2024 9:45 AM

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Answer 1

RaTig

Level 1

4 points

Dec 10, 2024 12:00 PM in response to pleriche

Noone told us, but there is a new Windows app, we have to use, when looking for iPhone/iPad software, backup, restore and other things like that. You can no longer use iTunes for this. Today (2024-12-10) I was surprised myself, not getting iTunes to show my connected iPhone SE2022, while Windows Explorer (for photo-saving) can. Quite by chance, I found an article in a computer magazine that told me, that iTunes is now only responsible for managing podcasts. What can you do now: On your PC, go to the Microsoft Store. Look for the "Apple-Devices-App" there and install it. There are now all the usual settings for managing Apple's mobile devices. In addition, there is also a new "Apple-Music" and "Apple-TV" App for Windows. So they splitted iTunes into 3-4 new Windows apps. I can't understand why iTunes doesn't tell us that itself when you open it these days and wonder where all the functions have gone. Hope I could help you

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Answer 2

pleriche Author

Level 1

7 points

Dec 1, 2024 7:22 AM in response to Floating_Bus

I was afraid iTunes was refusing to recognise my iPhone 7 as it's out of support. After a lot of trouble trying (and failing) to find evidence of iTunes having silently updated at the time the issue appeared, I tried connecting my iPhone to an old Macbook, which could see it, thus eliminating any problem with the cable or lightning socket.

So I tried installing iTunes on another Win10 machine, and that could see it too! Evidently a problem on my main machine.

Finally, I uninstalled iTunes on my main machine togeter with everything Apple I could find, rebooted a couple of times and reinstalled iTunes. Problem solved! I guess the same might work for you. Good luck!

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Answer 3

Dec 1, 2024 5:02 AM in response to pleriche

I can’t connect to my iPhone 16 pro. Likewise, windows recognizes it, but iTunes won’t! I need to back up my stuff! iOS 18.1.1 (22B91)

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