Manually Managing Music on iPhone 4

Anytime you change between the methods of syncing it does this, there is no way around it. If all your music/video is on the computer it shouldn't make any difference to you, just manually drag the songs/movies you want on your iPhone.

Please not that even going to Manually Managing your music you will not be able to load songs from another iTunes library.

Message was edited by: deggie

You can manually manage or sync iTunes content with one computer at a time, and yes, if you change from manually managing to syncing or vice-versa on the same computer your content will first be erased. There is no workaround, this is how it works. Since the content should already be in your iTunes library, just sync or drag it back to your phone.

Since the iPhone does not support disk mode, there is no advantage to manually managing content as there is with disk wheel iPods.

Not sure if you can manually manage books or not, haven't tried it, ringtones are music and as such are treated the same as we posted.

Is there a reason you want to go to manually managing your music, etc?

IMO, the best way to do this, since the iPhone does not support disk mode, is simply to create separate playlists. You can then add/delete from these playlists to your hearts content. Select what playlists you want on your phone & then sync them to your phone. Nothing is gained by manually managing content for the iPhone. The real advantage of this, as I've already stated, is for iPods that support disk mode. The iPhone does not.

I use the selected playlist method mentioned by wjosten.

However, this article gives other tips How to use multiple iPods, iPads, or iPhones with one computer, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495