How to transfer music to your iPhone without iTunes

It goes without saying that we’re massive fans of the iPhone here at Geek Squad. But iTunes? Not so much. While it certainly does the job, Apple’s desktop software doesn’t have a lot of fans in the tech world – and many users would rather ditch it altogether.

Honestly, I empathise. I’ve been an iPhone user for years, but I can’t remember the last time I fired up iTunes. It’s clunky, slow and complicated – a pain to use.

These days, with so many people using streaming music services like Spotify, music fans might be able to get away without storing any MP3s on their device at all. But if you still have an awesome music library stored on your computer, but you don’t want to use iTunes to transfer it to your iPhone, there a couple of options open to you.

The only downside of these methods is that they don’t allow you to play your music through Apple’s own Music app. Instead, we’ll be relying on some third-party options – but the good news is, none of these methods involve 'jailbreaking' your phone or voiding your warranty in any other way.

So, if that’s an acceptable compromise to you, read on to find out more!

• Transferring music to your iPhone with Google Play Music
• Transferring music to your iPhone with Dropbox

Transferring music to your iPhone with Google Play Music

Google’s Play Music is a fantastic piece of software with some major fans here at Geek Squad – and one of its core features is allowing you to listen to your stored music files across any number of devices.

A free Google account allows you to add up to 50,000 locally stored music files – so it’s a great low-cost option. Here’s how to set it up:

1. First of all, you’ll need a Google account. These days, most internet users already have one – if you’ve got a Gmail or YouTube account, for example, then you’re good to go. Otherwise, visit Google.com and sign up.
2. Next, head to the Play Music site at music.google.com. Sign in to your Google account there if you haven’t already done so. You may need to provide some payment information to verify your location – this is just for music licensing reasons, and you won’t be charged any money to use the standard service.
3. Next you’ll need to download the Google Music Manager software – you should see a link to do so on the Play Music page.
4. Once it’s installed, you’ll have a few options for where it can look for your music files – although you can also add your own. Conveniently, if you’ve got iTunes playlists on your computer, Play Music will actually let you use these in its own app.
5. Finally, press Upload to start uploading your music to Google’s cloud. Wait a while, and you’re good to go!

To listen to your music on your iPhone, you’ll need to install the Play Music app – you can find it here in the App Store.

Open it up, sign in, and you should see all of your music, ready to stream: just tap on a song to play it! This is all you need if you’re happy to stream your music to your iPhone over the internet – but for offline play, there are a few further steps:

1. Open up the Play Music app on your iPhone.
2. Find the song or album you want to save for offline listening, and press the ‘three dots’ menu button next to its name.
3. Tap Download, and the songs will be downloaded to your device for offline listening.

And that’s it! You’re now set up and can listen to your music on your iPhone with no iTunes in sight.

Transferring music to your iPhone with Dropbox

Cloud storage service Dropbox offers a convenient way to store your music and other files – and gives you the option of either storing them locally on your device or streaming them from the cloud when there’s an internet connection available.

The method is broadly similar to using Play Music – but if you’ve got other types of file you want to store (or you’re simply not a fan of Google services), Dropbox might be a better option for you.

First of all, you’ll need to download Dropbox from the App Store and sign up for an account. Once you’ve done that, simply follow these steps:

1. First, install the Dropbox client software for your PC: just visit their homepage and click Download the app.
2. After you’ve installed the Dropbox client you should have a Dropbox folder on your desktop, or elsewhere on your computer if you specified a different location. Find this folder and open it up.
3. Next, you simply need to copy the music you want to transfer into this folder.
4. The files will now be uploaded to your Dropbox account automatically – you can keep an eye on the transfer’s progress in the Dropbox client software.
5. Next, simply open the Dropbox app on your iPhone and you should see your songs, ready to play!

By default, tapping one of your songs will cause it to stream from the cloud, assuming you have an active Wi-Fi or mobile data connection. But you can also save your files to your device for offline play by marking them as ‘Favourites’ – just do the following:

1. Open the Dropbox app.
2. Swipe right on the name of a song you’d like to save to your device.
3. Tap the star icon.

And you’re done. You can now play the file in question through the Dropbox app whether you’re connected to the internet or not.

These methods should have you rocking out on your iPhone with no need for iTunes – but if you run into any trouble, drop us a line in the comments below and we’ll do our best to help.