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How do I stop my iPhone 5S from syncing my entire music library when connected to my laptop? I need to clear up space so as to download IOS8, but when I connect my phone to my laptop and iTunes, it puts all the music back on the phone, thus taking up most of my space. I am running the latest version of iTunes, and my MAC OS is Mavericks. Thanks for any help!
iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.4
What settings do you have in iTunes for the syncing of music?
I'm not sure what my settings are. The only place I can find anything about syncing is under File>Devices> and then the whole drop down menu (including sync) is grayed out. I clicked on "iTunes" in the upper lefthand corner and went to "Device Preferences." "Prevent iPods, iPhones, etc." from syncing automatically is not checked. Is this the problem? If I do check this, will it prevent my calendar, apps etc. from updating? Thanks for your help, Chris.
Once the iPhone is connected to the computer and iTunes, you select the phone and then look at the Music tab. From there you can select what music to sync and what not to sync. Also on the Summary page, there is a section regarding syncing and also manually managing music.
Chris, as soon as I plug my phone into my laptop it starts syncing immediately. Should that box I spoke of be checked? Is the "music tab" the first item in the list on the left under Library? When you say select what music I want to sync, that does that mean going through all 1,300+ songs in my library and unchecking them and then rechecking the ones I want on my phone individually? Would I have to do that every time I connect my phone to the computer? Also, may I ask where the "summary page" is? I'm not seeing anything like that.
Thanks again.
Lots of questions! I'll try answering.
1) Immediate syncing - there is an option to turn this off in the summary page. To find summary page see 2) below. Select your device. It will be after iTunes Store if memory serves. The automatic syncing option is the first or second checkbox beneath the summary information if you scroll down. But first you will have to either sit through a sync or cancel it. You can cancel sync by clicking the circled x to the left in the status bar (top of iTunes). Remember to turn automatic syncing back on unless you are confident you will remember to back up your device from time to time. It doesn't take that long to sync usually and is good policy as it backs up your device.
2) Music is an option at the top, middle of iTunes after you select your device in the sidebar. It sounds like you have sidebar on. If not, you can make it show by selecting view > show sidebar in the iTunes menu.
3) Selecting all Music - Yes, you have to select the music you want to sync after you select sync only selected items. But you can select entire playlists or albums to speed things along. Once you check one of these, iTunes knows to sync the related songs. But you might want more control than that and need to go through selecting just the songs you want for some albums. Or make more play lists. It may take 15 minutes, but you'll only have to do it once. Then when you add new songs or albums you will need to select them before the next sync if you bought them through iTunes PC. If you bought them on i device, it will automatically sync them.
Good luck!
Great information for you from UAGDog. I usually turn automatic syncing off on mine for the simple fact that if there is ever an issue with losing some information and you want to try and recover from a backup, an automatic sync will create a backup right away, and will overwrite the backup you have. So if the data is missing from the phone, that is the backup you will get. I manually sync my phone every night, so I get the backups I need.
As far as understanding where to find all of these tabs, I will post some screen shots for you later when I get home. I'm at work now and don't have access to the library of screen shots I have made to provide to other users.
Thanks again, Chris. That's really nice of you and I truly appreciate you going to all this trouble for me!
Chris, did you give up on me? =)
I'm sorry, I thought you got your question answered. If there is something else, I can respond.
You were going to post some screen shots. (I'm visual, so that would be really helpful!)
Thanks so much again!
Sorry, I missed that I had said that. Here is the top portion of iTunes when you have selected your device in the device pane.
If you need some more, I can get something else if you let me know what you might need. Although this support document addresses parts of it. iOS: Syncing your data with iTunes and this one should help as well. iOS: How to transfer or sync content to your computer
Can't stop iPhone 5S from syncing entire music library
