Solved: Apple Mobile Device USB Driver Missing on Windows

Apple mobile device USB driver missing

Why there is no Apple Mobile Device USB driver in Device Manager on my computer? I used to send photos to my iPhone 8 with iTunes. It worked fine but today I can’t use it. I have tried everything to repair it but all failed. How can I fix this or how to transfer photos from computer to iPhone in other ways?

– Question from Apple Community

>Apple Mobile Device USB driver is necessary for connecting iPhone to PC. Without it, iPhone won’t be recognized.

>Apple Mobile Device USB driver is usually be automatically installed when you install iTunes to computer.

>It is located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Devices\Support\Drivers.

>Outdated driver cannot connect the new iOS devices so you need to update or reinstall it.

In iTunes, you could purchase and download your favorite content to computer. When iPhone or iPad is connected to iTunes, you could send the media files like songs and movies to the mobile device. What’s more, iTunes could also backup, restore, update, and repair iPhone

However, everything about managing your iOS device could not be done if it could not be read or written by iTunes. Connection is the first step but without the driver, you cannot even make the first move.

If you open Device Manager on compute but find Apple Mobile Device USB driver missing, you could find the ways to fix the issue in the following sections.

How to repair or reinstall Apple Mobile Device USB driver?

Your drivers might still on your computer, you just need to fix the issue to let it show up again. If it really disappears from your computer, you could also easily reinstall the driver to your computer. If you never connect iPhone to this computer before and cannot unlock iPhone screen to trust this computer, you need to connect iPhone in another way. This method is usually used when iPhone is disabled and user needs to erase iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts.

Why you can’t see Apple Mobile Device USB driver?
◆ Drivers cannot be displayed in Device Manager because of system issues on Windows.
◆ Your iPhone has not been connected because of failed physical connection.

Solution 1. Restart Computer: If you are not an expert, restarting computer would be a good try to fix 90% of system issues.

Solution 2. Check USB Connection: There would be 3 things you need to check. First, the USB cable should be in good condition. You should use the MFi-Certificated USB cable to transfer data between iPhone and computer. Second, check whether the USB port is loose or broken. Last, stop using USB hub to connect iPhone because the power supply might be not stable.

Solution 3. Reinstall iTunes: If the driver is not installed, the simplest way to fix the issue is reinstalling this software to reinstall the driver at the same time but if you have your own iTunes library on this PC, you could backup iTunes library before uninstalling it.

Solution 4. Restart AMDS: The related service might be started, follow the steps to restart Apple Mobile Device Service:

1. Make sure iTunes is closed and iPhone is disconnected.

2. Press Windows Key and R and then enter services.msc. Press Enter then.

3. Set the Startup type to Aotumatic and then click Stop.

4. Waiting for stopping AMDS.

5. Click Start to restart AMDS.

6. Restart computer and then try connecting iPhone to computer again.

Solution 4. Update Driver: You driver might be out of date. Make sure computer is connected to the Internet and then update your driver:

1. Connect iPhone to computer with USB cable.

2. Right click the Windows Start Button and then select Device Manager.

3. Expand Portable Devices section. Click Update Driver. If you found your device like iPad in device manager not showing, you should return to solution 2.

4. Select Search automatically for updated driver software in the pop-up.

5. See whether the device icon of iPhone has appeared in iTunes.

Bonus Tip: How to easily manage iPhone data in another way?

iTunes could backup, restore iPhone and transfer data between iPhone and computer, but it is not best software to do these things.

Your iTunes backup could be viewed so you don’t know what iTunes backup includes and restoring iPhone from full iPhone backup would totally rewrite iPhone that means you need to save iPhone again and waste extra storage.

The feature of transfer is less unreasonable but you could only transfer data from computer to iPhone and photos synced from iTunes will be removed later if you turn on iCloud photos.

All in all, iTunes would bring trouble later after you use it to manage iPhone data.

The best iPhone data manage tool is FoneTool. In this software, you could select every item you want to make an iPhone backup, restore iPhone from backup, or transfer data between iPhone and computer. If you have problems connecting iPhone to PC, FoneTool would help you automatically fix it.

How to backup selected data from iPhone to PC?

Step 1. Download FoneTool to computer for free and connect iPhone to computer with USB cable.

Download Freeware

Win 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP

Secure Download

Step 2. Select Phone Backup > Locate Selective Backup and click Get Started on the home screen.

Step 3. Click the icons of apps and then you could view the specific items.

Step 4. Select the items and click OK.

Step 5. Click Start Backup to save iPhone data.

Conclusion

iTunes could help you manage iPhone data but Apple Mobile Device USB driver missing could let did nothing but it could be fixed by the 4 solutions in this guide.

iTunes is not perfect. You could try a better software FoneTool to manage iPhone data.

Share this guide and it would help more people.