How to back up my iPhone 4 information while I do a fresh clean install of OSX?

[Imola Ghost]

I'm wanting to do a full complete fresh install of OSX Leopard. I'm doing a manual back up and the only thing I'd rather not have to deal with is restoring and setting back up my iPhone 4.

What I'd like to do is just save whatever I need to save so that when I plug the iPhone 4 back in I won't have to do a complete new setup of the phone.

Ideas?

 

[saving107]

What I have done in the past when I've done a complete OS restore is go to Macintosh HD> User> User Name> Music> iTunes and saved these three files to a usb thumb drive,

Do Not Plug in your iPhone yet.

Once you have completed your restore of the OS and restored all of your music/tv shows/movies/apps back to iTunes, close iTunes. Drag these files from the thumb drive back to the same location, its going to warn you that doing so will replace the current files, Click OK.

Now re-open iTunes and all of your previous Settings/Playlist/Play Counts/Genius mixes etc... will all be just like from before you did the restore, and this time when you plug in your iPhone, its going to thing that nothing changed.

The Back-up will be gone and it will have to back up at least once, but the settings should all stay the same.

 

[Imola Ghost]

I'm not concerned about the Genius mixes or anything like that. I'm just concerned about being able to just plug in my iPhone 4 and not have to restore or setup as new.


I don't keep any music, movies, ibooks, podcasts or anything on my phone.

 

[Lotso]

Why not just back up your entire iTune folder?

 

[Imola Ghost]

Why not just back up your entire iTune folder?

I think that's what I'll do. I've actually got my music stored on a totally different hard drive, so it won't be to big of a disk hog.

 

[jpetticrew]

I'm not concerned about the Genius mixes or anything like that. I'm just concerned about being able to just plug in my iPhone 4 and not have to restore or setup as new.


I don't keep any music, movies, ibooks, podcasts or anything on my phone.

Having a fresh install of OS X would have no bearing on your iPhone's settings, especially since you don't keep any content on your phone.

 

[Imola Ghost]

If it's a new clean install won't iTunes say that it's never synced with this computer and ask to remove all content?

 

[Interstella5555]

I didn't have a problem when I upgraded to SL for my 4 (and still used my 3G on it for the week in between).