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Hack to allow syncing with multiple computers

M

madmaxmedia

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Dec 17, 2003
2,938
46
Los Angeles, CA
I have an iMac at home and a MBP, and was surprised to find that my iPhone can't sync music/movies with both of them.

I found this hack that tricks the iPhone into thinking 2 different iTunes libraries are actually the same-

http://www.andrewgrant.org/2008/03/30/how-to-sync-an-iphone-with-two-or-more-computers.html

I was wondering if anyone had tried this. At the bottom of the comments, people have said it works with iTunes 8, but one poster had problems retaining downloaded apps. But I'm thinking you might be able to just backup all the apps before doing the hack, then copying back into your iTunes afterwards (as well as any other purchased content from iTunes.)

If I can get this to work reasonably smoothly I'd like to do it. Anyone tried it?
 
madmaxmedia said:
I have an iMac at home and a MBP, and was surprised to find that my iPhone can't sync music/movies with both of them.

I found this hack that tricks the iPhone into thinking 2 different iTunes libraries are actually the same-

http://www.andrewgrant.org/2008/03/30/how-to-sync-an-iphone-with-two-or-more-computers.html

I was wondering if anyone had tried this. At the bottom of the comments, people have said it works with iTunes 8, but one poster had problems retaining downloaded apps. But I'm thinking you might be able to just backup all the apps before doing the hack, then copying back into your iTunes afterwards (as well as any other purchased content from iTunes.)

If I can get this to work reasonably smoothly I'd like to do it. Anyone tried it?
Click to expand...
Uhh...hex editing your program is never a good idea or good fix. I would simply SSH in the phone and move the music files to the other iTunes and sync there. Or perhaps you can just SSH in the music files directly to your phone, which I have not tried. But base on the various library folders on the phone, I probably wouldn't mess with that either.
 
Thanks for the reply. The actual hack does not worry me, all you are doing is changing the iTunes Library ID so the iPhone thinks it is connecting to the same iTunes library.

I could just as well copy music and movie files to a USB stick or portable HD, but it would be easier just to go straight to the iPhone in iTunes.

I don't believe you can SSH or otherwise copy media files directly to your iPhone, because the media database probably wouldn't get updated.
 
There is an app in cydia that allows your iphone to sync with 2 different itunes libraries. Check there if your iphone is jailbroken.
 
It's a nice little hack, it actually creates multiple iTunes databases on your iPhone. But you have to switch between each one to access your various content.

I wonder why Apple set things up this way in the first place. At least they now allow you to manually manage music...

If I don't hear any feedback on this particular method, I will probably try it out in the next couple days and will post back with my results.
 
I suspect that the reason this does not work out of the box has something to do with the fact that you no longer have to dismount your device before unplugging it.

With 5G and previous iPods, you are supposed to eject the device first.

My guess is that the general population is pretty ignorant of this, and a lot of devices got corrupted, and this was Apple's solution to the problem.

Again though, this is all speculation on my part, and I could be completely wrong. :)
 
TheConfuzed1 said:
I suspect that the reason this does not work out of the box has something to do with the fact that you no longer have to dismount your device before unplugging it.

With 5G and previous iPods, you are supposed to eject the device first.

My guess is that the general population is pretty ignorant of this, and a lot of devices got corrupted, and this was Apple's solution to the problem.

Again though, this is all speculation on my part, and I could be completely wrong. :)
Click to expand...


uhhh what?

what the op is describing is not true "syncing," no matter when and if you need to eject the device is irrelevant

you cannot sync any apple device with multiple computers, you can manually manage across computers, but a true sync is a mirror of content from another device
 
How Do I Save My Apps Installed From My Friends Pc Before Upgrading To 3.0 Firmware

PLEASE can anybody help me with this..?
i have purchased an official iphone 3g ....2 months back...and have installed more than 50 apps on it from my friends computer(synced on my friends computer)...!!
i have not synced my iphone with any other pc after that...!
now i want to install the new 3.0 firmware through my laptop....and at the same time i want to make sure not to lose any of the apps/music/contacts/videos/ that exist in my iphone...!!
how to do so..?
 
Just FYI, I can verify that the method described in the OPs link does work (at least for iPod Nanos). I've been using this method on 3 computers, 2 macs at home and a PC at work, and I've never had a bit of trouble since configuring it almost a year ago.

Regarding the iPhone, I've found that this does not work and I'm currently on the look out for an alternative.
 
2 'Persistent Library ID'!

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread.....
I have tried Andrew Grants method for syncing an iPhone to two iTunes libraries. My first problem is that I have one 'Persistent ID' that shows up in my 'iTunes Library.xml' file and a different one that shows up in my 'iTunes Music Library.xml' file. I had originally copied my iTunes library to my Mini from my old Powerbook G4. Now the Library ID from the G4 is showing up.
I have also SSH into my iphone and looked in the 'iTunes CDB' file and the 'iTunes prefs' file and each file has a different Library ID. (The two different ID's do match the two ID's that I found on the Mini)
Now, I have tried both ID's on my MacBook Pro and can not get either one to work. I have tried putting one ID in the 'iTunes Library' file and the other one in the 'iTunes Music Library' file and still no luck.
Any thoughts?
Can I just do a fresh install of Leopard and get rid of the dual ID's that I now have in my iTunes Library files?
My head hurts.
 
I had this working on itunes 9 however i have a new macbook pro and itunes 10 now and tried setting up the tunes persistent key the same as my imac but it doesn't seem to work....

Anyone else got this working with itunes 10??
 
TINCAN78 said:
I had this working on itunes 9 however i have a new macbook pro and itunes 10 now and tried setting up the tunes persistent key the same as my imac but it doesn't seem to work....

Anyone else got this working with itunes 10??
Click to expand...

I have the same thing on iTunes 10.

It seems iTunes is somehow replacing the "replaced" key with its original value.
 
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