One of the great things about working on Decipher TextMessage and Decipher VoiceMail is that I get to help people recover important and personal data (messages from loved ones, photos of grandchildren, and that 11-month conversation with your significant other) on an almost-daily basis. On the other hand, sometimes I have to heartbreakingly tell people that the data might be lost forever. If there is one thing that I've learned from all of these interactions, as well as my own iPhone use, it's that to most of us, the iTunes backup functionality is a mystery that we hope will pleasantly surprise us one day. I'd like to take a minute to remove some of the mystique, and give everyone some much-needed peace-of-mind.
When you plug your iPhone/iTouch/iPad into your computer and run iTunes, there are three forms of communication that you can request happen between your computer and the device: syncing, backing up, and transferring purchases.
Syncing
Syncing happens much more frequently; when your device is syncing, iTunes is making sure that the data on your computer and your phone are up-to-date with each other. Typically, this involves copying music or apps you have purchased on your computer to your device, making sure your calendars and address books match, and stuff like that. When iTunes syncs your device, it does not make a backup -- this is the surprise that bites most of us later.
Backing Up
Transferring Purchases
In the syncing description, I said that syncing copies music and apps that you've purchased on your computer to your device -- note that I didn't say a word about the other direction! If you purchase music and/or apps on your device, occasionally you'll want to make sure these purchases are copied to iTunes on your computer in case something happens to your device. To copy your purchases, right-click on the device under "Devices" in the main iTunes window and click "Transfer Purchases". I just did this myself and had five songs and twelve apps that I needed to copy to iTunes.
Backing-Up Your Texts/Voicemails
I hope this little post on data protection has been helpful to you. If you have questions, we encourage you to post them here or email us.
Amazing... This is the most useful article I have read on iTunes since the time I became an Apple fan.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why nobody commented on it before.
One question: Does iTunes include the images in the backup process?
Thank you for the kind words! The likely reason for the lack of comments is that we have been moving our blog over from an old site, and we finally just finished closing down the existence of the old version :)
ReplyDeleteImages (photos and camera roll) aren't included in the backups, since they're covered by the iTunes photo sync functionality. However SMS photos are definitely in the backup!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWill this work if you are connecting your phone to a new computer that the phone was not synced to before? I have a friend who is trying to save text messages from her husband's that recently passed away phone. The original computer containing itunes is no longer available. She has itunes downloaded on her new laptop. If I backup his phone and restore from that backup will the data be save?
ReplyDeleteHi cviv,
DeleteYou can make a backup on any computer, not just the one that it syncs with. What you are suggesting should work just fine. (You don't need to restore from the backup unless you want to put the data back onto a device though -- unless I misunderstand what you mean?)
I am afraid to sync my iPhone with my computer. Can you please help me get rid of my fears? Here is an example of my problem...lets just use syncing photos as an example. I have taken thousands of iphotos on my iPhone. I have also downloaded many onto my iPhone that were sent via SMS. On the other hand my Mac has even more photos in iPhoto on my hard drive from an accumulation of years even greater than what is on my iPhone. Many of the photos on my Mac, are not on my iPhone. Many photos on my iPhone are not on my Mac. Many photos are also on both machines. (I may have tried a sync when I first got the phone...I can't remember how I duplicated.) When I check the "Sync Photos" button in iTunes while my device is connected, I get an alert that tells me all my data from my computer will "replace" the data on my iPhone. (This inherently is the comment that scares me.) If I were to do that, and that were true, it stands that all the photos that are only on my iPhone would be gone. Is this true??? It also stands to reason that everything in my Computer iPhoto Library would be loaded onto my phone...and that would take up huge amounts of memory and likely would not even fit. How is that dealt with??? Lastly, let's say that all my photos on my iPhone that are not on my computer are added to my computer, and all my photos that are on my computer that are not on my iPhone are added to my iPhone and all photos that are already duplicated are left alone... this is what I'm thinking "syncing" SHOULD be...but is it??? Please confirm. If this is the case, then my only worry need be how I deal with the lack of memory on my iPhone. Additionally, if were were to investigate syncing contacts, I have another concern that Jane Doe is in my address book on my computer with an old phone number and a home address, but she is on my phone with a new phone number and no address. How do these "sync"? I mean, I would want to keep both contacts so I could consolidate the proper information. Please advise. This has been YEARS of troubleshooting! I have always been a mac user, love the simplicity but the whole Apple device line and the introduction of iLife is a sad misdirection of what used to be Apple's simplicity. Thanks for your help.
ReplyDeleteHi Gretchen!
ReplyDeleteHa, my husband was just commenting about the iPhone photo sync complete debacle as well. Hopefully I can shed a little light about the different steps! I'll try to write them in the order I would do them :)
1) Photos received via text message are not added to your iPhone's camera roll or photo album unless you save them manually. You can do this by clicking on an image in your SMS app and then selecting to save it from the little "more actions" arrow. We can also yank all of the images out of your SMS app with Decipher TextMessage -- email us and I can talk to you more about how to do that.
2) I am assuming that the photos on your phone and not on your computer are in your Camera roll, not in your photo albums -- please correct me if I am wrong about that one. To get these camera roll photos into iPhoto, you will want to connect your phone to your computer, and then open iPhoto (not iTunes), and it should bring you to the screen to do the import itself. Otherwise if you click on your phone, it should bring up the import screen. After you import them to iPhoto, you should be safe to click Delete Imported Photos in the little popup dialog that comes up. I always do, so I don't get nastygram popups about duplicate imports later.
3) At this point, all of your photos are hopefully in iPhoto on your computer. If not, proceed no further, and let me know where the photos are that aren't in iPhoto (presumably this would mean you have photos in your photo albums on your iPhone that were put there by syncing with another computer).
4) If every photo is in iPhoto, now is the time when it's safe to sync. Although the word sync would lead you to believe this is a two-way process, as far as I can tell it's all one way :) iTunes is going to push photos from your iPhoto library to your phone's photo album (and as you saw, replace the old photo album contents). You can select what albums you want to push, or just say all of them from the Photos tab, as you've seen.
I hope that helps -- the real key is that the iPhoto library is the definitive repository of the photos, and if it's not in there, then worry :)
This seems like a good blog post in-and-of itself... I'll add it to the list :)
Will 'backup' or 'transfer purchases' also transfer in-app purchases. I have purchased many items in one one app that don't seem to sync - only the orginal 'host' app. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteHi SCWoody,
DeleteThis is a great question.
Unfortunately, in-app purchases are all at the discretion of the app developer -- the developers decide how to "record" your purchase within the app. If the recording is a setting, it should be captured as part of the syncing process. It sounds like that isn't the case.
Also, in line with Apple app standards, each app should have a way to "unlock" previous in-app purchases without paying again. What app is it?
Previously I synchronized and did a back up on my iphone 4 to free up space. I am getting low on space again and need to transfer some more pictures and videos. What should I do in order to free up space and not have to worry about loosing pictures. I am worried that if I synchronize it will just put my old pictures back onto my phone.
ReplyDeleteHi Brandy,
DeleteYou should definitely take a look at the comment above about the whole photo syncing and capturing debacle :) (it's the "Decipher Media June 25, 2012" post).
Check your iTunes photo syncing settings to see what photos are being put onto your phone -- you can turn it off entirely to not put your old photos on, or just select a small set of your photos.
Are you importing your photos to iPhoto? Or something different?
No I have not been using iPhoto. Is iPhoto an app that you purchase? I have been just putting them in a folder on my external hard drive.
ReplyDeleteHi again Brandy,
DeleteiPhoto is a program that should be installed by default on a Mac. If you're copying them to your external hard drive, then it sounds like you're likely on Windows. Let me know if that is right, but for the rest of this I'll just assume you're on Windows.
If you look in iTunes at your phone (you can cancel any syncing in that little status box at the top of the program if you're worried about syncing) --> in the "Photos" tab (rightmost tab), is "Sync Photos" checked? It shouldn't be putting images back onto your phone if it's not.
Also, on your phone itself, are all of the photos on your camera roll, or are some in photo albums?
Yes I do have windows. I'll make sure the check is taken off of photos when I plug my phone in. And all of my photos are in my camera roll. I have never created any albums.
DeleteHello
ReplyDeleteMy last backup says:unknown
Is there anyway I can recover deleted text messages from iTunes? I can't even remember if I'd ever backup my iPhone. Cam you help me please?
Hi James,
DeleteI assume that you mean Decipher TextMessage says the last backup is unknown? Or does it say that in iTunes?
If you're unsure of what you have, I recommend downloading Decipher TextMessage (there is a free trial) http://deciphertools.com -- at the very least, the little Backups Loaded window will show you what iTunes backups the program found.
In iTunes, you could restore from an older backup, but that is likely too heavyhanded for how early we are in the process. Have you seen our other blog post about deleted messages -- or our video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeZoyxPpIDw
Hopefully that will help us get started finding what there is to be found!
Hello,
DeleteMy iTunes said last back up:unknown
I downloaded the software. It showed me very old messages that were from a backup on October 11, 2011. It did not show me any messages from Oct-present. I'm assuming that I haven't backed up my phone since then. Is there any way you can help me?
Yes - I agree that it sounds like you haven't backed up your phone since then. The smaller "Backups Loaded" window should tell you the date of the backup it found. That window should show up as the program launches, and is likely behind the main window when Decipher TextMessage is running.
DeleteIf you're looking to recover deleted messages, I would take a look at our You Tube video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeZoyxPpIDw It's long (15 minutes), but tries to describe the process in some depth. I hope it helps!
Thank you so much for your help. I'll check out the video.
DeleteRefering to SCWOODY's comment about in-app purchases not being synced. I wonder why in-app purchases like magazines are backed up in iCloud (with only 5Gb free ) but not backed up in iTunes (where much more resource is available) ?
ReplyDeleteMnsswiro , Belgium
Wow, this is a great blog. I too have been experiencing these same issues and have a slightly different twist on a question asked previously but it deals with data in apps, not photos. I recently was at the Apple Store and asked for assistance in dealing with a memory issue on my iphone 4s. The apple employee suggested that I first back up my iphone and then restore my phone to its original settings and then sync my phone to get the stuff from my itunes library back on the phone. Well, when i did this, I was able to fix the memory problem. However, I ended up losing data from one of my apps, called msecure. This app stores user names, pass words, accounts and all kinds of numbers that I can never remember. This was a huge problem for me. So I went home and actually restored the iphone 4s using an old backup found on an older computer in my house. I recovered about 90 percent of the data and tried to manually re-enter the missing data. Now, I want to use my new imac computer for future iphone maintenance. I am afraid to sync the phone with itunes on this imac and especially the apps because I also get the message that the apps (and I assume the data) will be replaced by the apps in itunes. Is there a way to work around this? I was wondering if I should first conducted a backup of the iphone to the new imac. I am wondering if this backup actually creates the basis for what itunes then uses when you sync your iphone. In other words, it will transfer the apps and data from the recent backup. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteHi Lynne!
DeleteFirst, I'm so sorry that we're slow on replying to such a great comment!
1) The backup itself doesn't form the basis for the syncing data, but I think forcing a backup is a good idea while you do this anyhow, just in case. That way you can restore to that backup if something goes awry.
2) Right-clicking on the device and choosing "Transfer Purchases" will copy all of the current versions of the apps and music to your new iTunes library (I think it should do books and magazines too, but I will need to check.) After doing this, it should be safer to sync apps.
most useful thing i've read about apple in my 4 years as an iDevice owner.....and i read ALOT of apple stuff
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! We'd love to hear it if you have more questions, so we can write more useful posts :)
DeleteHi, what a great find, I feared I was alone in not knowing the 'difference' between sync and backup.
ReplyDeleteHoping you can help with my problem. I am a 'silver surfer' so really not techy at all!!.
Had i phone 4s which I unfortunately lost. I have now received a replacement and used i cloud to put all my info back onto this new 'phone.
Unfortunately it did not put in my Contacts. After a swift search online, switch off Contacts then on again which was the only 'help' I could find, I accepted I had lost my Contacts for good and started to imput them all again.
My 'phone has 'synced' to i phones/i cloud/i pad and all I have on all devices, including i tunes are the 5 contacts I have since inputted.
I have a Windows 7 computer and reading above has given me hope that I may yet be able to restore my 'lost' contacts, but I am afraid I would need step by step help.
I would be so grateful if you could help me at all.
Again many thanks for this superb article and discussions.
Hi Tricia!
DeleteThanks for the great comment and question. I've been seeing a lot of lost contacts by people on twitter lately too. We're actually working on another tool right now that will pull the contacts out of a backup and put them into vcf (virtual card) files to send back to yourself to restore them.
Do you have a backup of your old phone? Feel free to write us here, or tweet to us @deciphertools -- I will definitely get back to you faster than this time around :)
This has definitely been extremely useful!! I have a question:
ReplyDeleteI have over 4,000 photos on my iphone4, no albums, all on camera roll. Whenever I open iPhoto it brings in every single photo and sometimes my computer crashes, and sometimes it just takes forever. Is there any way to bring in only photos that haven't been imported?
One more- on June 25, in part 2, you wrote "...Otherwise if you click on your phone, it should bring up the import screen. After you import them to iPhoto, you should be safe to click Delete Imported Photos..."
- do you mean click on your phone in iTunes? iPhoto? on desk top?
Thanks for helping me understand what has been baffling me for a long time :)
Hi Jessica!
DeleteGreat questions!
"...Otherwise if you click on your phone, it should bring up the import screen. After you import them to iPhoto, you should be safe to click Delete Imported Photos..." <-- The click on your phone instruction was for iPhoto.
I want to make sure I understand your situation correctly: You've been importing to iPhoto, but not deleting from the camera roll after, correct? So now iPhoto blows up from trying to import all 4k photos (or is it crashing from your iPhoto library if you just open iPhoto without your phone plugged in?)
We may have to get a little more creative to do it, but I bet we can get your photos out of a backup, import the new ones, and then it would be safe to trash your camera roll. (Do you want to trash your camera roll? Or keep them there? The other option is to sync photos so that new ones are in the camera roll and imported ones are synced into your photo album.)
Feel free to write us here, or tweet to us @deciphertools -- I will definitely get back to you faster than this time around :)
Hi. Happy Thanksgiving! I have a quick question and am hoping you can help. I have an Iphone4 and Itunes on a Mac laptop. For whatever reason my Itunes is asking me to either restore my phone from a past backup. I'm afraid I will lose contacts and such if I do this, so I have not. However I have a lot of music on my Itunes that I would like to get it onto my phone if possible. Is there anyway to do this without the new Itunes Match?
ReplyDeleteThanks in advance!
Hi Holden!
DeleteHappy (late) thanksgiving to you too! Interesting that your iTunes is asking you to restore -- your phone is working just fine though?
You shouldn't need iTunes match to put your music onto your iPhone, just the same old music syncing settings when you click on your phone in iTunes.
Drop us an email at info@decipher-media.com (and ask for Kelly just in case) and if you can, include a screenshot of that restore message you're getting. Hopefully we can help!
thank you very much!
ReplyDeleteItunes
Pandora
Hi thanks for the blog.
ReplyDeleteI have read most of the previous questions so I may have missed the answer so aplogies if I have.
In my case I may have lost some original photos from a hard disk which has failed. So my iPhone has nothing to sync to. Is there a way to extract the lower resolution images from the Album so I have at least something? Note these images are not in the camera roll.
Thank you.
Btw I tried backup file extraction software and that appeared to prove that backup doesn't backup any album photos.
DeleteHi Dave,
DeleteRight - in an ideal world, the photo albums are being pulled from your computer, so they're not duplicated in a backup (versus the camera roll that are new photos that haven't been added to the computer yet).
There are some tools that will connect directly to the phone (versus the backup, like backup browser), like iExplorer or PhoneView.
Or, how many photos do you have in the album? If it's not an incredible amount, you could email yourself the photos from the iPhone sharing. Or, you could also enable PhotoStream, add all of the album photos to PhotoStream, and then pull them down in iPhoto, or view the PhotoStream on a PC.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4486?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Great, thanks for the tips. HNY!
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if my question was asked previously. I'm reading this on my phone and it's quite difficult to scroll through.
I have an iPhone that I haven't synced in over a year because I had a virus on my laptop and never got around to removing it. However I have just removed the virus and would like to sync/back up my iPhone but in the year I have purchased countless apps and music. When I plug my phone in, it asks me if I want to restore a previous back-up or basically start as a new device. If I pick the 'restore previous back-up' does that mean that I'll lose all the stuff I have purchased this past year and since I have last backed it up?
Sorry if this is a repost but I am utterly confused. Any help is appreciated and I must concur with the other posters that this site definitely has the 'clearest' answers that I have come across.
Thank you in advance.
Mika
Hi Mika,
DeleteThanks for the great question -- hopefully we can figure out something that will benefit you or anyone else who has this same problem.
You are right in thinking that restoring from a backup will wipe your current phone and replace the contents with the contents of an old backup. The good news is that your purchases are tracked on your iTunes account (so you could redownload them), but the bad news is that any data from the apps (or texts, etc) would be gone for good.
I started looking up this issue, and found a couple good suggestions:
- This may happen if you have an issue with the USB port that the iPhone is connected through. Do you have another USB port to try plugging the cable into? Also if you have any docks or USB hubs, it might be worth taking those out of the picture a moment and plugging in directly.
- A few people have said that selecting "New Device" and then unplugging your phone immediately will trick everything back into place. Sounds a little dodgy to me, but way better than restoring from a super-old backup!
http://itsmichaelw.com/tutorials/this-computer-has-been-previously-synced-with-an-iphone-or-another-ios-device/
I have a few more thoughts as well:
- Did you update to the most recent version of iTunes yet (since you mentioned your computer has been infected for a while, perhaps it's still an old iTunes?) I would definitely give that a shot if not.
- Do you have another computer to plug the phone into? You don't have to sync with the iTunes library on that computer (and I suggest against it), but you can make a backup of your phone on that machine for safe keeping of your data while you get the phone-iTunes connection working again. Maybe a friend's computer?
HI,
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to absorb all the great info on this blog. I always have trouble understanding technology, I appreciate you hard work on here. I have read through this page and I see that it mentions that a back-up doesn't save the photos, or did I understand incorrectly? I recently had to send my iPhone 4s for repairs and I know they totally wipe out the phone. They told me to make a back-up on the Mac and they guaranteed me that everything would be backed-up. Now I'm in fear :{ I also wonder what happens to the progress on my game Apps, can I get them back to the level I was on? Or will have to start over?
Thank you for your help.
Hi Michael!
DeleteGreat questions. The backup doesn't contain your iPhone "Photo Albums", since those should be photos synced from your computer to your phone, but it SHOULD contain your "Camera Roll" photos, since those originate from the phone (and would be lost!)
Did you just get your phone back? If so, you could restore from that backup, to get all of your photos, data, and App data (like your game progress). The only downside of that now would be if you have new stuff on your phone, that restoring would wipe out.
For Apps that save their progress locally (instead of on an account online), the progress data should be in that backup you made.
If you don't want to restore from the backup, we may have some tools to extract the camera roll photos (like Decipher Backup Browser) from the backup, but jamming your old game saved data into your phone may be a more exciting adventure. Restoring would definitely be easier, but it just depends on if you want your new data too!
Your video and notes about iTunes Backup and Sync are very helpful. Can you also shed some light on iCloud and how it is similar or different and when to use iTunes vs iCloud?
ReplyDeleteiCloud is all about hosting your data on Apple's servers ("In the cloud") versus on your own machine. iCloud also has features for sharing data between your iOS (and OSX) devices for apps in addition to the backup feature.
DeleteiCloud backup enabled on your phone is great if you don't mind your data being on Apple's servers (normally this isn't an issue unless you're a company with tight security restrictions, like a law firm or a government contracting office) -- it happens automatically every so often. The downside of it is that you don't really have "access" to your backup -- you can restore from it from your phone, but you can't really dig around and look at pieces of your backup or specific files.
iTunes backups (to your local computer) are good because the data is on your computer, so you can access all of the files from the backup (normally using a program to help you). But, you need to be a little more diligent about backing up to that computer. You can enable wifi-sync to help make the process a little more automatic, but plugging into your computer and opening iTunes periodically will help ensure a backup happens more regularly.
Hello - thanks for the very useful article. I have just a quick question.
ReplyDelete1) should I always use the same computer to back up and sync my iPad and iPod? I have a pc and I just purchased an iMac, I am wondering if I need to commit to just using 1 to house the iTunes and do all my syncs and backups to the PC or IMAC.
2) Here's a tricky question. I have multiple devises 3 kids iPods and 1 kids iPad and 2 adult iPads. I have 2 apple IDs, and 1 iTunes. Question: how do I back up all the kids devises to 1 apple ID and all adult to the other apple ID?
Hi Michael - great questions.
Delete"Should I always use the same computer to back up and sync my iPad and iPod?"
You can back up to as many computers as you like, but you'll be happier if you're syncing to just one computer. Your iPod/iPhone/iPad will only hold the contents of one iTunes library, so if you sync with a different machine, the sync process will replace items that are present from the original machine. (That's why you get a little popup in iTunes before you switch to syncing to another machine.)
"I have a pc and I just purchased an iMac, I am wondering if I need to commit to just using 1 to house the iTunes and do all my syncs and backups to the PC or IMAC."
I would make that commitment, and just say that all of the syncs (on the same Apple ID) happen to the same login on the same machine. You could definitely back up to the other machine sometimes, but you won't want to swap back and forth syncing.
"Here's a tricky question. I have multiple devises 3 kids iPods and 1 kids iPad and 2 adult iPads. I have 2 apple IDs, and 1 iTunes. Question: how do I back up all the kids devises to 1 apple ID and all adult to the other apple ID?"
Sounds like a fun house! :)
Keeping in mind that iTunes won't log into two Apple IDs on the same computer account (more on that in a sec), here is what I would do:
I assume you want to migrate everyone to using the new iMac. I would create a second user account on the iMac (Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Accounts) for the kids. You can make the account an admin or not depending on if you want them to install stuff on the iMac :)
Now that account's iTunes will be logged into the kids' apple ID, and your account will be logged into the adult apple ID. Everything should stay separate and as a bonus, you also keep your iMac activities separate too :)!
(Another option, if you want to keep the PC in use is to use the PC iTunes for one Apple ID, and the iMac for the other. Same idea, just the two accounts are across two machines instead of one.)
I hope that helps! Shout if you need some clarification or have more questions!
Thank you so much! You were very helpful.
DeleteThank you so much for explaining all this! I thought I was the only one who couldn't figure out the whole itunes sync/backup process, and how to get my photos off my phone (which I thought happened in itunes too). First, glad to know I'm not crazy, second, so overjoyed to finally know how to do it. Thank you, thank you!!!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read every comment above so if I missed a solution to my problem, forgive me.
ReplyDeleteI recently got a new iMac but my large iTunes library is on my MacPro. Not only that but it's media folder is located on a non-boot volume located in one of the MP drive bays. I have my iMac iTunes set the media folder to that same location (mounting that remote volume first) It all seems to work fine. However I was doing some cleanup and found that that media folder for both my MP iTunes and my iMac iTunes has multiple versions of my iPhone apps in the Mobile Applications folder. I thought that maybe I could just remove all of them and then sync and have the Backup process that is one of the steps a sync does re-download them to that folder just the latest current versions. Not sure if it would work, I picked a currently installed app (ETrade) and remove all versions. Then I plugged in my iPhone and watched it complete the sync including the backup. I then looked in the Mobile Applications folder and ETrade app was not there. I did a Manual Backup from within the iTunes application on my iMac. That didn't do it either. I have read threads on Apple forums that say others have just the latest version of apps in their Mobile Applications folder. Then I came across other threads where the media folder was on an external drive that kept older versions. Suggestions were made to just do a Consolidation of the library. I tried that but that didn't clean out the extra old versions. I should point out that the dates on the old versions go back several years way before my IMac was purchased a couple months ago. So it has nothing to do with the problem. It started a while ago. I have considered deleting all versions except the latest (based on Modify date or version number) but I'm not confident that as new versions come out that the older ones won't keep piling up. How can I:
a. clean up the old versions?
b. keep them from piling up again, only keeping the current version?
Hi Teaman,
DeleteThis is an interesting question. Hopefully we can help, although I certainly will not claim to be an expert on this specific issue :)
a. How to clean up the old versions?
Manually checking timestamps and versions sounds horribly time consuming! Assuming that you just need the apps that are currently on your device, you can trash everything, and then use "Transfer Purchases" to get the current apps into your library.
(Don't sync in between, I worry all of the apps will be erased from your phone!)
In the File menu of iTunes, there is a submenu "Devices", from there you should see an option to "Transfer Purchases" from your device.
b. How to keep them from piling up again, only keeping the current version?
This is a great question. My suspicion is that maybe this was a problem in an older iTunes (pre-11), so I'm interested to see if the cruft continues to build. I've poked around for automatic app updating/installing settings in iTunes 11 but I don't see anything.
Thanks for the response. As a followup, I sync'd my phone again just now and the ETrade app still didn't cover over to my media folder's Mobile Applications (MA) folder.
DeleteYour comments in a.) suggested that because I had deleted all of the versions of the ETrade app that the sync now removed the app from my phone. I looked on the phone and no, it was still there. I then went to the File menu as you suggested and did the Transfer Purchases. When done, the app was still not on my Mac in the media folder MA folder. I did a file search using a more powerful search app called Houdah Spot and it found an ETrade app in that folder but within a subfolder called Previous Mobile Applications. I checked the version and it too was old and the date in 2011. So nothing I do gets the app back in MA folder on my MacPro. This is all very mysterious and strange. No one seems to be able to explain the black box. I've searched on the Apple Forums and nothing can resolve this problem for me. Until I find a way to get the apps on my iPhone back into the MA folder, I'm not sure if I dare delete any of it.
I'm confused about forcing a backup. If I'm understanding you correctly, when I plug my iPhone into my computer, iTunes will decide whether to sync or back up. If it decides to sync, won't it start doing that (and therefore start potentially changing the data in my phone) right away, before I can intervene to force it to start backing up? How can I make sure that what gets backed up is everything that was already in my iPhone when I plugged it into the computer?
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post!
Hi BlueJade,
DeleteThis is a great question, and I have two answers for you:
1) You can stop the sync, if it starts automatically, by clicking on the little X icon to the right of the status information in iTunes (the little gray rectangle at the top of the window).
2) The information that is synced is a different set of data than what is backed up (music, your photo album -- not your camera roll, etc), so the sync shouldn't really do any damage to data that you need to backup.
I hope that helps!
Thank you for this page. What a wonderful find. My question is...if I recently made a backup of my iPhone to i Tunes, when I restore will videos from my Camera Roll come over in the restore? I see my photos safely in iPhoto but cannot find my videos anywhere so I'm hoping they will pop up in the restore. I chose not to delete my photos after I imported those to iPhoto. Thank you in advance!
ReplyDeleteHi Rahal,
DeleteYes, the full camera roll should be in the backup. You can do a restore to that backup (keeping in mind that your current data since the backup will be lost) to see what is in your camera roll.
You can also try out Decipher Backup Browser (http://deciphertools.com) if you want to take a look at the contents of your backup and see if the videos are in there without restoring.
I hope that helps!
I transferred purchases from my iPhone4 to my iTunes, but am now getting a warning that tells me I've made changes to my settings (and I haven't changed anything). The warning reads: "you have changed the settings for the iphone. would you like to apply these changes?", with two options at the bottom: "revert" and "apply".
ReplyDeleteWhat does this mean? I haven't changed any of the settings, all I did was transfer purchases made on my iPhone to my iTunes.. Help!
Hi Lindsay!
DeleteIf you haven't adjusted any of the sync settings in iTunes, then I'd just hit revert -- it won't affect the transferred purchases.
My guess is that transferring purchases (or another click) mistakenly counts as making changes to the sync settings in a similar way to how printing counts as "making edits" to a document in some editors (like Pages!)
I've definitely had the same dialog box pop up on me while I'm not changing any sync settings, so I know those false triggers are there.
thank you so much for all ur time. Your answers help so much for the people like me who is no good in IT field. I have a couple of questions;
ReplyDeletemy cell phone has automatic sycn of notes, contact, and photos. however, one day I accidently deleted some of my important notes from my I phone,which have not sync yet to iPhone. Is there anyway I can recover those notes??
Also I have another questions; suppose I accidently deleted the one which already sync with I tunes before. when I sync with I tunes next time, will the noted will be deleted from the I tunes?? or sync only goes one direction from computer to iphone not vice versa
thank you so much in advance for the help.
Hi Hom!
DeleteThank you for your post, and I apologize for my delay in answering -- I was actually in the hospital delivering our baby boy, who is doing well! :)
The notes sync should be bi-directional, so the next time you sync your notes, your deleted note should be deleted via iTunes as well. Not the answer I would like to give, but unfortunately should be the case.
However, we can look to see if your old deleted note is in an iTunes backup for us to pull out of there. I would recommend downloading Decipher BackupBrowser from our website http://deciphertools.com . You can use the free trial to look at what backups you have, and what dates they are from to help you determine if the note should be in one of those backups. You can also use the program to recover the note itself if you'd like.
I hope that helps you get started recovering your old notes!
Thank you so much for the reply and congratulation for the baby boy. Unfortunately, notes I was looking for had not backed up because I wrote theses notes just a day before that deletion. Am I going to loose those notes for forever, am I right?? is there anyway we can change setting some where so that deletion would be uni-directional ??
DeleteDepending on your sync settings (whether it's iTunes or email -- I assumed iTunes before but now I realized that it wasn't clear), the notes may still be saved in your email drafts. If you look in your Settings -> Mail Contacts & Calendars, you can see if any of your email accounts have notes sync enabled. If so, there may be versions of your notes sitting in that email account (if it's a gmail account, you can use the search to help you find some of the content.) This is what I did one day when my notes got deleted.
DeleteThank you so much for the help.
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ReplyDeleteMy dad had been using the iPhone 5 for over 10 months when his lock button got spoilt. Before I took his phone to the apple store I wanted to back up his phone on my iTunes (my iphone 4 is already backed up on my iTunes). I set up his phone as a new device on my iTunes and 'synced' it but did not create a backup as I was under the impression that when I set up the phone as a new phone it will automatically create a back up. But after reading your blog I realised I was wrong. I need to restore all his contacts on the new phone. Can you please help me with this. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the all the info and the video. :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat post, thank you! One thing I don't understand about photos - how do I keep certain photos from my camera roll on my iPhone while importing all photos to my PC? I have windows 7 and just started importing photos to my pictures folder. Do I need to sync first for the folders I want to keep before importing (I've selected to delete the imported photos). Or do I need to go in manually on my computer after importing and move the photos I want to keep on my iphone into synced folders?
ReplyDeleteHi fsmrb!
DeleteIt sounds like you already know most of what I am going to say, so if I fail to answer part of your question, just let me know!
You don't need to sync before importing the photos. Unfortunately if you only want a subset of your imported photos put back onto the phone, you will need to manually select which subfolders of My Pictures you want to sync, and do any tweaks (to edit out photos you don't want synced) to the subfolders yourself.
I have a question:
ReplyDeleteLast night I did a restore to factory settings and a restore from backup and my phone is working great again. Now, I am wanting to put music onto my phone. Problem is, I have a new computer since last I synced my phone.
If I sync and itunes wipes my phone, can I do restore from backup again and everything will look identical to what it looks like now? And then can I add music?
I don't want to lose anything from my phone. Thank you! This blog is really helpful and great.
Hi Cassie,
DeleteThanks for the great question. Yes, you should be able to sync just fine with iTunes without it touching the non-sync data on your phone (the data you put back on by restoring from the backup.) But, in the event that the sync causes some problem, you could restore again from the backup to bring the data back.
Before you start syncing, you may want to press the backup button in iTunes (in the Info tab) so that you update your backup with the last couple days worth of texts, voicemails, and other data changes :)
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ReplyDelete