How to switch to sync music (from manually manage) without deleting music?

[ramparts]

I'm currently manually managing music on my iPhone 4, but I want to be able to automatically sync books, ringtones, etc., and bizarrely this means I have to do the same with music. I ran into the same problem on an iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago and found that when I checked "Sync Music" and asked it to sync selected music, it actually kept all of my music and automatically checked the artists, albums, etc. which I'd added manually. Any songs which I didn't upload in a full album were added in a "manually manage" window at the bottom of the music sync screen.

I can't, however, figure out how to do the same on my iPhone. Any time I click "Sync Music," it threatens to erase all of my music. Does anyone know how to reproduce this? I stumbled upon it by accident (on my second try) with the iPad.

 

[saving107]

I just switched mine (iPhone 4 and iPad 2) on Saturday to Manually Manage and nothing happened.

 

[ramparts]

To clarify: I'm talking about switching from manually manage to sync. I went ahead and did the switch to "sync music" and just reconstructed my library myself, but I know there is a way (at least for iPad) to make the switch from manually manage and have it automatically list the albums you'd added, but I can't figure out how to reproduce it, so if anyone knows how this works it might be a good resource for other people doing this switch in the future!

 

[greytmom]

I'm not sure what you mean. When your iPhone is connected to iTunes, go to each tab and select your choices for Contacts, Apps, Ringtones, etc. You don't have to set the music to automatically sync as well.

 

[ramparts]

If you have your music manually managed, things like books and ringtones (though not a couple of things like apps and calendars) are also going to be on manually manage. If you try to check, say, "Sync books," then iTunes warns you that it's going to delete all the music, movies, etc., and indeed it does. You can't manually manage music and automatically sync books (or ringtones or movies or what have you). Or at least, I can't

 

[greytmom]

If you have your music manually managed, things like books and ringtones (though not a couple of things like apps and calendars) are also going to be on manually manage. If you try to check, say, "Sync books," then iTunes warns you that it's going to delete all the music, movies, etc., and indeed it does. You can't manually manage music and automatically sync books (or ringtones or movies or what have you). Or at least, I can't

No, it really doesn't do what you just described. I just synced mine to get some screenshots for you. One moment.

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Whoops. I didn't catch that you were doing books. Yes, it does that for me too. But for the ringtones, contacts, apps, it doesn't (I thought that's what you were referring to).

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By the way, unless you have hundreds and hundreds of books, it seems like it would be easier to just drag the ones you want, rather than sync and erase your music.

 

[ramparts]

Right, I don't sync contacts and as I mentioned (I think) apps do sync fine. Books don't, IIRC ringtones don't as well but I might be wrong there.

 

[Vundu]

The only way is to add all your music that is currently on your phone to your iTunes library.

 

[ramparts]

The only way is to add all your music that is currently on your phone to your iTunes library.

Maybe you're misunderstanding my question. All the music on my phone is from my iTunes library, I just am looking for a way to switch from manual manage to automatically sync without it deleting all of that music. I did it on my iPad but can't reproduce it on the iPhone.

In any case, I've bit the bullet and reconstructed my iPhone library using automatic sync, but it would have been nicer if iTunes had done it automatically (i.e., automatically check all of the albums that I'd manually uploaded), which I know it can do, so hopefully someone will have the answer and this will be a useful future reference.