How to move iPhone sync on iTunes to new MacBook Pro

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Level 2

201 points

How to move iPhone sync on iTunes to new MacBook Pro

hi, I recently bought a new MacBook Pro and I chose to slowly and one at a time move everything from an old MB Pro to this new one. Everything worked great except for one thing, syncing my iPhone to the new MB Pro's iTunes.

I basically sync just two things from my MB Pro (through iTunes) to my iPhone, and that is Photos and Music. But so far, I have been fearful about clicking on the "sync Music" button in iTunes on the new MB Pro with the iPhone connected. I get a message that says,

"..Are you sure you want to REMOVE existing Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books and Tones from this iPhone and sync with this iTunes Library.

Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books and Tones synced to "myiPhone" from other iTunes libraries will be removed and items will be synced from this iTunes library.."

Since I don't know what that will do, there is no way I will say yes to that so to date I am still syncing and updating my iPhone from my old MacBook Pro.

I have backed up my iPhone on both the old and the new Mac but Sync'ing is what is holding me up. When I open iTunes on the new computer and click on Artists, it shows many as it should. When I click on Songs, it shows a few hundred though I can't say for sure that it's all my songs. But when I click on PURCHASED it shows only 2, one I bought recently and one I don't even know that it says I bought years ago. But I've bought hundreds so that part of the iTunes listing is wrong. And the Playlists that I have made are not over on this version of iTunes. I started this a couple months ago, the moving from old to new Mac and I don't recall all that I've done with respect to iTunes but I'm seeking advice on how to get this version of iTunes to look and treat my iPhone exactly like it did on my older Mac.

Any suggestions??? Short of telling me to click that "let's clear everything and start over" sounding button.

thanks

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.4), late 2016 model with Touch Bar

Posted on May 17, 2017 3:15 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

gail from maine

Level 9

52,575 points

May 17, 2017 3:25 PM in response to Robert Paris

OK, so to see the actual Purchased items, you need to make sure you are signed in with the Apple ID that you did your purchases with, make sure that iTunes is Authorized for that Apple ID, then open the iTunes Store, and click on Purchased under the Quick Links section. Then you can click on Not in My Library to see any music that is not currently downloaded to your new Mac. You can then download that music to your Library to ensure that everything is in the Library.

If you had items in the old Library that were not purchased from iTunes, then you would want to make sure that you actually transferred that old Library to your new Mac:

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer

Once you are certain that the Library on your new Mac is complete, then you can go ahead and sync your phone to it. You would want to connect your device to the Mac, and click on the device icon in iTunes to get the device-specific sidebar. Then go to each tab and make sure that each profile is set up to sync the items you want retained on your phone. Once you have your sync profile set up, then you can go ahead and sync the device. It will erase your media, but then it will re-sync everything you have selected in your profile back to your device.

It's kind of a pain,but I've been through this a few times, and ultimately, the result is that you end up with everything back on the device, and after that first sync, it will just sync in the "normal" way.

Best of luck,

GB

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,905 points

May 17, 2017 4:45 PM in response to Robert Paris

Ideally you would have followed a process such as that shown in Move your iTunes library to a new computer to clone the iTunes library from the old computer to the new one. If you had done this then the new copy of the library would still be treated as the home library for the device and you wouldn't have got the erase and sync warning. You can revisit your library migration, or if you are certain that you have all the media you can go through the erase and reload process.

tt2

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Answer 3

Robert Paris Author

Level 2

201 points

May 17, 2017 10:41 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks to both of you for your responses. I'm a 30 year Mac user and know lots of it well but I must admit, I have never really paid the right kind of attention to iTunes and how syncing on iTunes works.

Is it possible or reasonable at this point to simply copy the iTunes Library from my old computer and use it to replace the one I have on the new computer??? And if I did that and then attempted to sync from the new computer would that cause the erase and sync warning to go away??? And am I being overly scared of that message in the first place???

And why does this message refer to all things related to Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books and Tones but NOT to Apps??? When I look at what iTunes (at the cloud level) thinks I own, it includes APPS as well??? Why are they not also a part of this erase and sync warning???

Your thoughts on the above questions??? thanks...

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

272,905 points

May 18, 2017 1:48 AM in response to Robert Paris

Robert Paris wrote:

Thanks to both of you for your responses. I'm a 30 year Mac user and know lots of it well but I must admit, I have never really paid the right kind of attention to iTunes and how syncing on iTunes works.

Is it possible or reasonable at this point to simply copy the iTunes Library from my old computer and use it to replace the one I have on the new computer???

Yes.

And if I did that and then attempted to sync from the new computer would that cause the erase and sync warning to go away???

Yes.

And am I being overly scared of that message in the first place???

Possibly, if you have successfully transferred the media from your old computer then you're not going to lose any content, but the erase and sync will take time to complete, and you will have lost ratings, playcounts, playlists, etc. that were in the old library.

And why does this message refer to all things related to Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books and Tones but NOT to Apps??? When I look at what iTunes (at the cloud level) thinks I own, it includes APPS as well??? Why are they not also a part of this erase and sync warning???

Weirdly apps were always treated separately. so you could sync apps from one library and media from another. So I think are podcasts. I've no idea why.

tt2

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