i've just moved to Mac, i understand i have to lose my itunes library if i'm to sync with my new mac - this is not a major headache, as most of it is from cds that i have so can be replaced. purchased songs and apps can be moved over ok, according to other threads here but what about my texts? will they all be wiped? if this is the case i will be soooo annoyed at Apple and won't be syncing iphone with my Mac! this has been wrecking my head so anyone who can help, it would be greatly appreciated! thanks!
Set up iTunes on your new Mac. Log into your iTunes account (under the "store" menu).
GO TO THE PREFERENCES AND DISABLE AUTOMATIC SYNCING FOR IPOD'S AND IPHONES!!
While you're in there, select the option to "copy music to my iTunes Library" and "Keep iTunes Library Organized". (or whatever is called, I can't remember and since I'm copying files to mine right now, I can't check the menu)
Copy all your music, movies, apps, podcasts etc. over to the new iTunes on the Mac (you can copy everything to an external drive and then just drop it in the iTunes window where your "music" would normally be displayed. iTunes will copy it all to the proper locations in your new Mac.
Now when you plug in your iPhone it will show up in iTunes and you can right click, control click, double finger tap, whatever you decide to use on your iPhone's icon to access the contextual menu and select Backup. This will start the process of backing up your iPhone on your new computer. After you back it up, you should be able to sync without fear of losing all your texts and such. The only thing I don't know is if you can copy the Library files and such from the PC to the Mac so you can keep your playlists. I'm pretty sure it doesn't go the other way as I just tried to do it migrating my iTunes to a new Windows 7 install. If I remember correctly, iTunes may ask you some questions about adding the iPhone to that iTunes account but I know you will be able to back up before anything gets changed, I just bought a new MacBook Pro and had to go through it myself.
This exact same thing happens when you move from one Mac to another, as I just did, except I can copy my Library files and thus don't lose any playlists either.
While you're in there, select the option to "copy music to my iTunes Library" and "Keep iTunes Library Organized".
ok, did that! now what about this...
Copy all your music, movies, apps, podcasts etc. over to the new iTunes on the Mac (you can copy everything to an external drive and then just drop it in the iTunes window where your "music" would normally be displayed. iTunes will copy it all to the proper locations in your new Mac.
so how do copy everything to an external drive?? i thought it wasn,t possible to copy from an ipod..?
You can back up your itunes library like shown here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382 and restore it on your mac again. Or copy the library to an external drive and then to your mac, shown here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751 Disable autosync in itunes, connect your phone, right click on it in the device list and choose "transfer purchases". This will add your purchased media from your phone to your itunes library.
Make sure to set up at least one contact and event on your mac, to be able to get the merge prompt when you sync your phone. After all media content from your phone got erased during the first sync, restore it from the manual backup you did as described above. See what's inside a backup:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766 Apps can be downloaded again for free:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
