Backup Question for new iPhone

[brn2rnjk1]

My son is in college and we just shipped him a new iPhone (5s) to replace his old 4s. While he has a MBP at school, he says his backup is on his desktop in our house. Is there a way he can set a new backup on is MBP so that he can transfer what is on his old phone to his new one? He said the cloud wont accept all of it. He suggested we bring the desktop up with us but that seems to be a big job for just getting all of the music/apps etc from old phone to new phone.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Raibyn]

I don't think this is easily done if I remember correctly. It's an issue with the iTunes library I believe. It would definitely be easier to backup to the same computer it has already been synced to. It might be a good time to go ahead and set up his iPhone as a new one that is synced/backed up to his MacBook Pro.

 

[jaseone]

Follow this guide using their desktop to copy the iTunes library to an External Drive (hopefully it will fit on a USB flashdrive) and then send that to them so they can complete the rest of the steps.

 

[mightygitis]

Has he considered backing up through iCloud instead?

 

[jaseone]

Has he considered backing up through iCloud instead?

:

He said the cloud wont accept all of it.

 

[sucka free]

He can create a new backup of his phone in itunes on any computer and then restore the new phone from that backup.
I've done it when switching out phones and using a different computer than the one I usually use with itunes.

I don't have a link but apple gives you instruction on their support forum. You can google it.

 

[PNutts]

He said the cloud wont accept all of it.

I've set iCloud to not backup my photos because I have more than 5 GB of photos. He could turn off photos to see if that allows him to use iCloud, but he'd have to be careful to back them up some other way.

Personally, I'd throw money at it. Buy more iCloud space for one year and not lug a desktop to college and home again. He should move the iPhone to the MBP anyway for convenience sake.

Here's another suggestion that I've never done so you may want to research it. Authorize his MBP with the Apple ID used for purchases. He can plug in his phone but instead of erasing and syncing, he needs to transfer purchases to the MBP *and* back up the phone. At that point he has a complete iTunes backup and iTunes has all purchases and he can then erase / sync with the MBP. Other purchases can be downloaded to it at a later time if at all. When he brings it home you can use Home Sharing to drag purchases over to it.

Good luck!

 

[BeeGood]

I think the easiest way is for you to copy his music to an external drive, mail it to him and let him set up a new iTunes library on his MBP. He can sync apps and everything else in iCloud.