iTunes confused with 2 iPhones

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iTunes confused with 2 iPhones

I have iTunes 11.0.4.4 on Windows 7, I have two iPhone 4S's with IOS 6.1.3. One is my personal iPhone just named "iPhone" and the other is my work iPhone named "Work iPhone" (I know, real origianl).

I first synced my work iPhone with my computer and my personal one with another computer. That other computer is gone now and I want to sync it with my remaining computer, so that both are on this one computer. When I connect my personal iPhone, it goes through a sync and backup, but when I look at the Apps in my library through iTunes, after syncing, it's still showing the apps from my work iPhone. It does show the music from my personal iPhone (I don't have any on my work iPhone), but it shows movies from my work iPhone instead of my personal one.

If I click on the iPhone button in iTunes, it does show my connected phone (the personal one) and I can arrange the apps on the menus as needed.

So I'm confused (or iTunes is) about what is connected. My fear is that if I click the Update App button, it will all the apps and movies and such on my personal iPhone with the information from my Work iPhone since that's what is being shown in iTunes.

What is going on here and how can I confirm that I'm not going to screw this up?

Posted on Aug 8, 2013 5:52 AM

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Answer 1

lljo Author

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Aug 23, 2013 3:51 AM in response to lljo

Wow, I cannot believe how long this question has been here and no one has been able to try to help! 😟

I started to try to sync my music, since I put some new music on my laptop, but it looks like it wants to wipe out my phone!

When I plug my phone in, it says it's backing up and syncing, but I have no idea what it's really doing. When I went to the Music tab, the "Sync Music" checkbox is not checked, so I checked it. That prompted a message "Are you sure you want to remove existing music, movies, .... from this iPone and sync with this iTunes library?"

I clicked Remove and Sync and the usage bar at the bottom of the screen went from 6GB free to 26GB!

When I clicked the APPLY button, it prompted a message "The iPhone is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sunc with this iTunes library?".

That scared me too much so I clicked CANCEL and the usage bar showed all my data there again.

I want my personal iPhone to sync with its library on this computer and my work iPhone to sync with its library! How can I confirm that is going to happen without wiping out either phone???

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Answer 2

Linxhack

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Sep 19, 2013 9:35 PM in response to lljo

I just stumbled upon your question and I hope I can help. I've had this identical problem.

This is a major failure of iTunes... and the sooner that Apple realizes that multiple device users may not want the same content on every device the better. We are a 4 iPhone, 2 iPod, 2 iPad family... you can only imagine the migraine this caused. I digress...

The only way that I have found to accomplish what you are doing is to create 2 separate users on your computer. 1 for your personal phone, 1 for your work phone. You will then need to install iTunes on each "user" on your computer and create separate libraries.

For the files that you have purchased under your current Apple ID, you can keep them on both phones, but when the apps need updated you will have to enter the other ID's login and password to update them.

I would recommend creating a separate Apple ID for your work phone so you can keep that content separate. (However if you want it on both phones you'd have to pay for it twice.)

Once you've done all of this, you can sync back and forth between libraries... and your original information will be saved on it's respective "User" library.

Hope this helps... good luck

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Answer 3

lljo Author

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Sep 20, 2013 4:13 AM in response to Linxhack

Thanks for replying, glad to see someone found it!

I cannot create a second user on this computer as it's my main work laptop. I carry it everywhere with me all the time, so that's why I use it to sync both phones.

I do have different apple ID's for each phone, and thought iTunes would recognize that and the unique phone, so that it could handle each one separately. That only seems logical!

With the IOS 7 upgrade (which I applied to my home phone) the problem was kinda solved. During the upgrade, iTunes crashed and my phone had to be reset back to factory standards and I lost all the apps anyway! I did manage to find a backup (which iTunes was doing without syncing) and restored my contacts and such, but had to download each of the applications and organize it again. It is synced now, with this computer, but I still haven't figured out how to get my mysic and videos back on the phone (but I guess that's another post).

The closest thing to a solution that I've found was opening iTunes while holding SHIFT down so I could select a different library. I will try that when I sync my work phone again to see what happens.

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