How to back up iPhone from PC to Mac

[ssb333]

Hi,

I just bought a MacBook Air. I have been using a PC all this time. I want to sync my iPhone to my new MacBook Air rather than my DHELL laptop.

How can I back up my iPhone to an external hard drive and upload that file to my new MBA and restore from back up? If I just back up my itunes library from my PC to an external hard drive and upload all the itunes files to my new MBA will that take care of everything when I am syncing my iPhone?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[dantiston]

A little different

Hey ssb333 --

If you've already transferred your stuff, skip the first paragraph:

I'm not sure what you mean by "back up my iPhone to an external drive." I mean, I get it, but that would not do anything helpful. Remember that syncing is a process in which your iPhone takes all the data that's on your computer (that you want), and vice versa. But your part about the external for your music was right. You'll want copy all your photos, music, etc. from where they are in your PC (My Music, My Photos, etc.) just onto your external (or directly onto your mac using Ethernet, wifi, etc.). Then on your mac, I assume you'll want to use iTunes and iLife -- so you just dump your "music" folder into iTunes, your "photo" folder into iPhoto, etc.

Then, for your apps, (don't quote me on this cause I haven't done it in a long time, but it should work) -- plug your Windows iPhone into your mac, go to the File menu, and click "transfer purchases..." and that will bring over everything you've purchased that's on your iPhone (like apps) from your iPhone into your mac.

*huffs and puffs*

Alright -- then once you've got all your media in the right spot on your Mac, click on your iPhone in iTunes, and it will prompt you to restore your iPhone -- which will erase all the data on it. You'll want to do this. Then set up your iPhone as a new iPhone, and go through the steps to set up music, photo, etc. syncing.

Don't worry, it takes longer to write it out and read it than it does to do it.

Enjoy your Macbook Air! I'm envious.

(P.S. -- make sure to start Time Machine backups with that external of yours... which would require formatting, FYI)

 

[ssb333]

Hey ssb333 --

Alright -- then once you've got all your media in the right spot on your Mac, click on your iPhone in iTunes, and it will prompt you to restore your iPhone -- which will erase all the data on it. You'll want to do this. Then set up your iPhone as a new iPhone, and go through the steps to set up music, photo, etc. syncing.

Don't worry, it takes longer to write it out and read it than it does to do it.

Enjoy your Macbook Air! I'm envious.

(P.S. -- make sure to start Time Machine backups with that external of yours... which would require formatting, FYI)

Thank you. I really appreciate it
One thing though-I don't want to setup the phone as a new phone. I want it to be the way it is. Is that not possible with changing computers?

 

[dantiston]

Belated response

No. iDevices get "married" to computers -- the divorce process leaves the iDevice empty.