Tony's Tips ~ Syncing with Multiple Computers

Posted by Tony Kicks on October 6th, 2009

Ever wanted to sync your iPhone with more then one computer to merge something like contacts or pictures and get a message like this (see photo above)? If you're someone like myself with more than 3,000 songs on your phone this message is more than concerning. In a day and age like this where so many people use multiple computers on a regular basis how could Apple possibly limit your syncing to merely one machine? I myself have all of my music saved on my Mac Mini at home, all of my photos on my MacBook Pro and my apps saved on a work computer, without constantly copying them all to one machine how can I get all of this content on a single iPhone?

As it turns out Apple and iTunes is more prepared for this than it appears, they just don't advertise or explain it very well to anyone. An iPhone isn't tied to just one machine for syncing, it's simply tied to one machine for syncing each category. In other words you could have your music sync from one machine, photos from another, movies from a third machine, etc. for each separate tab in the iTunes menu. So if you click the "Sync Movies" check box and it warns you it will erase all Movies on your phone you can proceed without fear of losing all of your music as long as the music check box is not marked as well.

Go forth my friends and buy as many computers as you can afford, iPhone syncing can no longer hold you back from your dream of having an AT&T-like command center in your basement.