How-to | Update Apps on Your iPhone Through iTunes

So I got a new laptop and wanted to utilize the office internet to update my apps. But too bad the company network team's WIFI policy doesn't allow us lower rank staff to update Windows, Android nor Apple Apps and OS, we only allows to update our stuff with the LAN connection.

So I plugged in  my iPhone to the laptop, open iTunes and sync the phone. Sync finished, but the Apps in my phone remain unchanged. Inside the "Apps" page of my phone settings, I can see my Apps appears on the Home screen but not in the left-hand side list.

Searched on Google and found this but not particularly helpful. Can't complaint much as the last post was in 2013. But simply sync the iPhone to iTunes just won't update the Apps.

So I tried to click around and found my apps in the iTunes App Store "Purchased" page.

Apparently you'll need to download back the Apps into your computer using the iTunes App Store before you can update them back to your iPhone.

Here's how you do it:

1. Open iTunes App Store using the 'A' button on top-right and then click "App Store" on the top navbar, then click "Purchased" in the "QUICK LINKS".

2. Wait for it to load, and you'll see the list of Apps you purchased since you got your first iPhone. This might not be the most effective way to do it, but is the way I figured out myself: Click the download button on top-right of each App you need to put back to your iPhone (yeah, and then iTunes will start to download them to your PC).

3. Click the iPhone Icon (with your phone connected to PC) to open the iPhone summary, then  click "Apps" under Settings to see the list of Apps.

4. And now you are able to see your Apps on the left with the "Update" button. Apps you haven't installed into your phone will have the Install button instead, for those with no updates, it will be the Remove button.

I hope it helps. Do feel free to share if you know how to do it without manually go through the list of Apps you purchased all these years and hand-pick them back into your phone.

Have a nice day.