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Where is the Windows Phone App for Mac and how do I update it?

I upgraded to El Capitan the day before yesterday and now my Windows Phone App for Mac doesn't detect my Windows 8.1 phone. I am now unable to sync my phone or even detect my phone through Find My Phone.


Everywhere I search I get the advice "The Windows Phone App for Mac is available form the Apple App Store". I have never been able to find it. Has anyone? It automatically installed when I got my new phone at the beginning of the year after this happened with my Win7 phone and I ended up with a phone memory full of photos, videos and data I couldn't sync.


Overtime there is an update I lose the use of my phone and my settings keep reverting to default. I also keep getting asked to download and update my Java. I don't have Java and I can't seem to get rid of that annoying message permanently.


First my iMac says it doesn't recognise photo and video formats so won't import them, now it doesn't even see my phone. What next?!


I can't afford to keep replacing my phones just to have them work with my computer and I sure as shoot can't afford an iPhone (though I wold like one).


Any advice would be welcome. Helpful advice would be heavenly!


Jules

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Oct 12, 2015 12:18 AM

Reply
31 replies

Dec 22, 2015 12:11 PM in response to davidpbj

Ok thanks for that. I'm still on 10.9.5 because I dare not update to ElCapitan or the one before (I'm on the one before that whatever it was called) because of reports of it trashing the photo library (yes I have a backup, but the hassle is not worth the apparent minor benefits of the new versions of OSX - I really don't care what it looks like). The Windows Phone app you kindly linked works fine, but I'm disappointed to see that it only handles media (photos, music etc) - I thought it was going to sync contacts as well and possibly text messages. Or even let me write texts on my macbook and use the phone to send them.

Anyone any ideas on how to sync contacts and text messages between a macbook and a nokia lumina with Win Mobile 8.1?

Feb 9, 2016 7:58 PM in response to Benjamin Rubin

Hi,

Thanks to everyone for their feedback so far, but I'm still stuck. I'm having a nightmare transferring music files from my macbook to my windows phone (nokia lumia 502).

I've never had the windows phone app for mac and am unable to find it now.

It's unclear how you do the "change extension trick" using nokia photo transfer. If anyone can give greater detail on how to do this, that'd be great thanks.

Also, even if I could get this to work, I don't see how this would help me remove files which are currently on my phone's memory card. I have limited space on my phone's memory card. Really, I need to be able to connect the phone to my macbook in such a way that I can delete old music off the card and then transfer new music onto it from my macbook.

Unless I'm mistaken, One Drive is completely useless unless you're online at the time? I've got a very limited data package and live in the middle of nowhere, so this unfortunately isn't much good to me. Ideally, I'd be listening to music on my phone around 6 hours a day, so I really need an offline listening option.

On every old phone I've had, as soon as I connected it to my macbook by usb, when I went to Finder on my macbook, my phone would show up as a device and I could manage files on my phone's memory card easily.

I'm thoroughly unimpressed with this new windows phone so far. Everything's a struggle with it.

Windows and Apple's inability to work with each other is ********.

I'm certainly not going to buy a windows computer, because they're ****. Equally, I'm in not going to buy an iphone, because their batteries stop working in the cold (which is an issue, because I live in a ski resort!).

If anyone's got any other suggestions, I'd really appreciate them.

Thanks

Nick

May 10, 2016 11:58 PM in response to L'étroit mousquetaire

Hi Guys,

I m planning to get lumia 950 soon & what to sync my stuff with my iMac, been mac users since a decade & can't go back to Windows Desktop,

anyways i saw the method of getting it to work on this thread, just wanted to know if this method of changing usb library files of the windows app will work on OSX 10.11.4 ?? Also will the Windows app then sync photos with photo app or iPhoto on OSX?


Thanks.

May 13, 2016 3:41 AM in response to berj79

I'm afraid that you have to manually remove the card and connect with a microSD adaptor or USB card reader. This is good enough for my requirements, as it's very easy to access the card on the 950, with others it may be more tedious. I haven't had any joy connecting via USB or bluetooth. The phone is recognised, but the mac has no permission to access data on the phone. I've had a quick look in the developer mode, but even there I don't see any possibility to change the permissions to allow access. As others mention, One drive is painfully slow, but it may be good enough if you need to transfer a few isolated files...

May 25, 2016 10:02 AM in response to Benjamin Rubin

I just upgraded my AT&T Lumia 640 from Windows Phone 8.1 to 10. Everything is working very well. A pleasant surprise is the Windows Phone App for Mac is also working perfectly connecting to Windows Phone 10 OS on my Lumia 640. The app did notice that the phone's files were reformatted, and suggested to click ok to ensure the phone and the Mac would always now be in sync.


So good news for Lumia Windows Phone owners who are hesitating to upgrade to version 10. Have no fear, go ahead, and enjoy. No need to transfer files by taking out the SD card and reinstalling into the phone each time (how painful!).

Where is the Windows Phone App for Mac and how do I update it?

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