Sync iphone to two computers without delete data

I'm on iOS 7.0.4 and I have the most recent iTunes. I was pulling my hair out because I have 2 computers and I was only able to put music on my phone from one the computers

annoying apple and there stupid software

You can only sync with one computer. It's so people aren't going around to all their friends computers and syncing muisc from them. If both computers are on the same network, just turn on home sharing. That way you can get all your music on the computer that you sync with.

GadgetGeek1 wrote:

You can only sync with one computer.

Library. It's an important distinction, if not you wouldn't be able to move your library to a new computer. See this thread.

tt2

What a BS response. It is NOT simple, especially when you have some issue that Apple senior techs can't fix that prevents iTunes for Windows from updating the iOS and then prevents iTunes from even recognizing the phone. Yes, you can copy and move your whole freaking library on an external drive, etc, but why should you have to do that? I've spent literally days fighting through this issue with Apple support and no effing joy until I somehow got it synced myself. Now, all of my apps are on the problem computer and I'm supposed to copy the problem computer library and take it home and infect my home computer. Total crock of BS.

01am wrote:

The important thing here is that you should be allowed to what you want with your phone and itunes accounts. Whether it is recommended or not by Apple should not be of interest, its your phone and your computers. The fact that iTunes wants to wipe your phone if you plug it into another computer is a little aggressive to say the least.

There are a number of ways of getting round this that have worked for me, but i've just upgraded my iTunes and phone to 10.5 and these have stopped working (it does after every upgrade) and i've not tried again yet. The ways i've tried are copying various codes within my home iTunes to my work iTunes and this makes your phone think that they are the same,

"Various codes"

Yes, that's really helpful. Thanks

Instead of critiquing my two and a half year old post about a different problem why not focus on exactly what it is you want to achieve? I can't find a recent question from you to respond to so I've no idea what you've been spending literally days trying to do but I might have some cogent advice for you when I understand the problem.

Everyone ought to keep a backup of their iTunes Library in case of hard drive failure.

Restoring a backup to a different computer is normally quite easy, particularly if you back up to a cloned folder of the source rather than using some proprietary system.

There are ways to recover all of the media and settings from an iDevice into a new library if an easier way isn't available. See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for details.

tt2

So "erased" only refers to the music/video 'I-tunes' content. Use one of the external programs to remove this date from the phone then press 'erase and sync'. For me, after this, all was fine. Just copied the music back via I-tunes.

To be safe backup, then copy the backup file and store it elsewhere.Thus backing up the backup.

Turingtest2, I'm wondering if you can answer a syncing question for me. I'm not interested in copying my music consistently from on computer to another. I don't play music from the computer much. Sound quality of a MB Pro is horrible and I have my iPhone to bluetooth to speakers and headphones. I also use beats more than iTunes anyway. My iTunes library is not growing for me. So I'll give Apple there extreme protection of music and videos.

Now for the question. Does this level of iTunes rights management apply to data and apps if I am logged in to the same Apple ID I used to purchase apps? I'd like to have the option to back up to either. Good practice to too have multiple back ups (don't like how iTunes doesn't keep back up versions. Sure I have other versions on the Time Capsule but still think iTunes should keep multiple versions itself. Not everyone has a dedicated back up drive, though they should).

I want to sync data and apps with two iTunes because I travel an average of 4 days a week and my iTunes is on the desktop. I just got a new laptop so think it is time for a change. I guess I could move the whole library if my kids didn't also sync to my desktop. But they do so I can't move the whole library. I want to move only what matters to me, not the junk the kids have downloaded with my AppleID. We do have family sharing running. I guess I should move some music out of the kids reach (NIN and Liz Phair are not appropriate for 10 year olds!)

Is syncing "my stuff" on both possible in your opinion? As an alternative plan, If I just sync my iphone with MB Pro and tell it to transfer rights to what is on the iPhone will the kids 5th gen Touches still sync their junk and music on the desktop?

Thanks for reading.

Each library has an internal LibraryID, and each object added to the library is referenced through its LibraryPersistentID. If you clone the library that you currently sync with to a second machine you can then strip out the content that you don't want on that machine. Both libraries will have the same LibraryPersistentIDs for the common content that you want to sync from either and the same LibraryID so that you don't get an erase and sync warning when switching between them.

iTunes automatically archives iOS backup sets when they are restored to a device. On OS X you can also make your own copies directly within iTunes so there is no good reason not to have several snapshots to choose from, particularly once you have your device backed up to more than one machine.

tt2

thanks for your info about syncing my iphone with 2 computers! I thought it was a lost cause until I found this thread! It still works with itunes 12.1.1.4!

TuringTest2: Thanks for your thoughtful explanation of how to clone an iTunes library to a second machine! A follow-up question: do I need to run the same release of iTunes on both machines for this to work? My "home" iTunes library is in my old laptop 11.1.x running on Win XP. I just downloaded and installed iTunes 12.1 (64-bit) to run on Win 7 in my new laptop.

Here's why: I would like to get a current backup of my iPhone 3gs, which is still running iOS 6, to transfer/restore into a new iPhone 6. However, I'd prefer to leave the old iTunes and its backup intact while I (in parallel) use a third-party backup extractor to recover data from a precious app my kid deleted from the phone. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Robin

Yes. Both machines should run the same build of iTunes if you want to switch back and forth. An older library will be updated to work with a newer build, but you cannot open a newer library with an older version. iTunes 12.1 is the last version that can work on Windows XP & Vista.

tt2

OK, thanks!

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2