You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Transferring Purchased Movies to a new iPhone with slow internet not possible

Scenario: An iPhone user has over 400GB of Movies purchased movies and watches them in remote camp where internet is very slow and limited. He purchased a new iPhone 13 Pro Max with a 1TB Drive in order to fix his entire iTunes / Apple Movies / Apple TV library. This includes Music, TV Shows, and Movies.


TV Shows and Movies will NOT transfer over to a new iPhone:

They need to be downloaded one by one.

Methods Tried:

  1. Restore from iCloud Back-Up: Unsuccessful. All Movies must be redownloaded.
  2. Transfer using direct transfer Bluetooth: Unsuccessful. All Movies must be redownloaded.
  3. Transfer using direct transfer USB Camera Adapter: Unsuccessful. All Movies must be redownloaded.
  4. Restore from Computer Back-Up: Unsuccessful. All Movies must be redownloaded.


Tried Exporting Movies using iMazing: Am able to export movies but they are in a .movpkg format which will not allow you to import them to the new iPhone. Tried Airdrop too, but will not work.


Other Issues:

On Apple TV App on iOS:

  1. Only way to redownload all movies, is to click on each movie then click download.
  2. No setting to download all movies and TV Shows (such as with Apple Music.
  3. No way to show all movies "not in library"
  4. No option to show all movies and if they are downloaded on on the cloud (like on Mac version).
  5. Tried using Transfer Purchases in Apple TV on Mac (Right-Click on iPhone), but it does not seem to transfer Movies.
  6. Tried downloading all movies on a Mac then using Sync, these movies do not show up in the Downloaded folder on the Apple TV App.


I am supposing these limitations are to protect against copyright hacks. If you are one of those persons with hundreds of GB of Purchased Movies, there is no way to transfer them to a new iPhone. I am posting this to save you the trouble. If this changes in future, or I have missed something, please post a response.



iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on May 9, 2022 8:44 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 9, 2022 11:54 PM

Purchased digital content is for a user account (Apple ID), not for a device per se. DRM’ed content can’t be transferred between devices. DRM’ed content can’t be transferred to other accounts. To have files local to a device, one does need to re-download each one of them, from Apple’s servers. Those are the terms. Other streaming content providers have similar terms for offline downloads. The remote camp ploy doesn’t change any of that.

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 9, 2022 11:54 PM in response to Macrove

Purchased digital content is for a user account (Apple ID), not for a device per se. DRM’ed content can’t be transferred between devices. DRM’ed content can’t be transferred to other accounts. To have files local to a device, one does need to re-download each one of them, from Apple’s servers. Those are the terms. Other streaming content providers have similar terms for offline downloads. The remote camp ploy doesn’t change any of that.

May 10, 2022 8:36 AM in response to Urquhart1244

Urquhart1244’s - Not everywhere has unlimited and fast Internet (ie. Yukon, Canada), particularly remote communities. I’m talking about purchased Apple Movies, not streaming services. When Internet is slow, streaming is not possible. It used to be possible to transfer purchased movies and shows before the Apple TV App. That’s why there is a Transfer Purchases option that still shows in the Apple TV App on the Mac. However, this doesn’t seem to work for movies and shows anymore. When someone upgrades their iPhone, having to re-download all their Music, Shows, and Movies is very time consuming even with fast Internet. By time consuming, I mean days and days of downloading. There is also no download all option for movies which also used to be an option before Apple TV. This post is not about transferring DRM files to another account but a way for an owner to upgrade a device without spending days downloading when they have a purchased movie library of 100’s of movies and 100’s of GB.

Transferring Purchased Movies to a new iPhone with slow internet not possible

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.