How to Downgrade iTunes to Previous Version on Windows and Mac

iTunes 12.7 was released on the day of Apple Event on September 12th, 2017. And this new iTunes version is fully compatible with the iOS 11 software update. After updating to iTunes 12.7, you may don’t like it because it removed App Store, or you meet some iTunes problems such as iTunes keeps crashing and iTunes invalid response. Therefore, you want to have a downgrade.

Related Reading: The full list of iTunes problems you may meet 

However, Apple official website doesn’t offer its users the method to downgrade iTunes to previous version. So you have to follow other methods to remove current iTunes version and reinstall the previous. In this post, we gives you some methods to downgrade iTunes app on Windows and Mac computer step by step. And these methods is said to also work for iTunes 12.7 and iTunes 12.6.

How to Downgrade iTunes on Windows 10/8/7:

  1. Uninstall iTunes completely, including all components like Apple Mobile Device Support and Apple Application Support. Sometimes when you cannot uninstall these iTunes components, you can try again after disabling anti-virus software, Windows User Account Control and some repairing software.
  2. Go to C:/Users/[PC Name]/Music/iTunes, and change the extension of iTune Library .itl to iTunes Library.bak.
  3. Restart computer, download iTunes previous version and install previous version.

Note: you can google “iTunes old versions” to find more iTunes in old versions.

How to Downgrade iTunes on Mac/MacBook/iMac:

  1. Quit your iTunes and iTunes Helper process by using Activity Monitor on Applications > Utilities > Memory.
  2. Go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal and enter the command sudo rm -r /Applications/iTunes.app
  3. Download previous iTunes and reinstall your iTunes on your Mac.
  4. Rebuild your iTunes library.

Google Matched Content You May Like:

13 thoughts on “How to Downgrade iTunes to Previous Version on Windows and Mac”

  1. I am extremely displeased that Apple installed iTunes 2.7 on my Mac without my permission. Although they undoubtly reserve that right somewhere in the agreements they force us to execute, that doesn’t make the practice ethical. Apple should apologize for the practice, and make the upgrade optional.

  2. Step 3 won’t work. Says the file iTunes Library.itl cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes. Would you like to download iTunes now?

  3. Thank you so much for the help. I am now finding that itunes 12.7 is a huge pain in the butt (crashes, won’t start up, no app syncing).
    I’m removing it right now.

  4. Hi, I reverted to iTunes 12.6 on my computer. Then I was trapped in a huge update of my mobile apps in the iTunes store. Before I was able to complete updating the apps for all my mobile devises. the Apple Store application on my computer updated me again to 12.7.

  5. Hi. I downgraded to iTunes version 12.0.1.26 on my PC. I followed your directions and was able to upload all my music from my files. I had my tones in a directory C:\users\…\my music\iTunes\iTunes media\Tones. These tones do not show up in iTunes under “My Tones”. In addition, iTunes does not want to connect to my phone. I try signing in with my user name and password. I then get the following message: Apple ID Verification code: Type your password followed by this code into the password filed on your device. ### ###. Also, this message pops up when I connect my phone to the PC, “Cannot not connect to the iPhone “Evelyn’s iPhone” because an error occurred while reading from the device.”

  6. In addition, I restarted my PC and at start up, I got a message that I was missing some files (icloud) and core media. Does that make sense?

    1. These are the messages I am getting when I restarted my PC ——-
      “iCloudservices.exe cannot start because MSVCP140.dll is missing. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.” and
      “The ordinal 2013 could not be located in the dynamic link library coremedial.dll” Hope you can help.

  7. When I enter the Terminal command, Terminal asks for my password but when I type it, I get this:

    override rw-r–r– root/wheel restricted,compressed for /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources?

    Do I need to enter anything else? Or just close Terminal and proceed?

    1. PS After typing password which did not appear the following happened

      Typed Y and then got ‘operation not permitted’

      Seems in High Sierra that Apple has locked this down

Leave a Reply to Jonathan Cancel reply