B J P

Q: Sync iPhone w/ new Mac, sync music from old Mac?

Here's a quick synopsis of what I'm dealing with:

 

I have an issue with my iPhone 6+ that the repairman tells me to update my iOS to try and fix. Problem is, the Mac I've synced my phone to for years (with all my music) is too old to install the latest OS to update to the latest iTunes to allow me to update to the latest iOS (yes, that's as stupid as it sounds -- but that's a separate rant). I know you can update iOS over WiFi, but then the phone would no longer be able to communicate with the old Mac to sync music.

 

Let's assume that I wish to keep all the media on that older Mac. I do have a newer MBP that I could otherwise use for iOS via iTunes updates, but it can't accommodate all my music and video files.

 

My understanding is that you can't start syncing / making backups / update iOS from a new computer and still sync music from the old one.

 

Is it possible to sync music that's stored on the old computer but accessed on the new one via Home Sharing? I don't mean importing the files to my MBP -- not enough drive space for that -- but doing it all over the network.

 

Any other potential solutions to my issue?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM

Posted on Jun 3, 2016 10:49 AM

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Q: Sync iPhone w/ new Mac, sync music from old Mac?

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  • by mabaeyens,

    mabaeyens mabaeyens Jun 3, 2016 11:03 AM in response to B J P
    Level 4 (1,986 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 3, 2016 11:03 AM in response to B J P

    Except for the repair part, three months ago I was in the same situation with a plus: my new Mac is also used at work, so for security policies I cannot store personal information there and it has SSD disk, which is way smaller than my older two HDDs.

     

    So I decided to fully switch to iCloud, and that has been the best decision I could have made. Photos, contacts, music, everything is using iCloud Library. Yes, I still do backups with iTunes, and then move the files out of the computer to an external disk. But just thinking of the time consuming effort of moving all the libraries (music and photos, several hundred GBs) and avoid any information to be removed inadvertently, I switched iCloud on for all services.

     

    Maybe not the answer you wanted to hear but I feel you. Now all my devices are up and running. I no longer sync with iTunes, whatever I want is in iCloud: Books, Music, and for any other files, iCloud Drive

     

    iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support

    iCloud Music Library: Understanding differences between Apple Music and iTunes Match - Apple Support

    Sync iBooks between your Mac and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

  • by B J P,

    B J P B J P Jun 3, 2016 12:43 PM in response to mabaeyens
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 3, 2016 12:43 PM in response to mabaeyens

    Sounds like that could be a good workaround for some but I'm not really interested in paying Apple even more money to store my stuff remotely. I have a 1TB drive in the iMac, about 75% full and most of that is probably music and movies.

     

    I'm trying to avoid a scenario where I have to move the iTunes library to an external drive and/or transfer entirely to another computer. In the case of an external drive I'd have to figure out a way to keep that stuff all backed up too; right now it just goes to Time Machine with the rest of it.

  • by mabaeyens,

    mabaeyens mabaeyens Jun 4, 2016 3:07 AM in response to B J P
    Level 4 (1,986 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 4, 2016 3:07 AM in response to B J P

    Since one device can only be linked to one iTunes, you either keep it synced with the old one or with the new one. I also wonder why they have set that limitation as nowadays you frequently have more than one computer, but yes, that's another story.

     

    What I can say is that as long as you press sync in the new laptop, the new contents will replace those in your iPhone, and if the new one is empty, you will basically erase the device. I think you already know that but, that's what we have.

     

    That said, of course you can have your library in an external disk and just make sure that external disk is accessible when you want to sync your new media.

     

    How to move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Support

    Manage and back up your iTunes media library - Apple Support