I don't want my MBA full of apps!!

[dannywalls76]

Ok, I've done a search of the forums and can't find an answer, so apologies if this has been answered already.

I have an MBA, iPhone 4S and will have a new iPad (if it ever arrives) and I have accumulated quite a few apps in my time as an iDevice user. So much so that they were taking up nearly 20GB on my MBA. So I deleted them (after backing them all up) and unchecked the 'Sync Apps' button for both iPad and iPhone. I thought that with iCloud, the apps on my SSD were pretty redundant seeing as I can re-download any apps I delete on my device. I was happy to have all that space back but then encountered a problem.

Every time I sync my iDevice, it automatically transfers any new apps onto my laptop and I then have to go in and delete them again. It happens every time even though 'Sync Apps' and 'Automatically sync new Apps' is unchecked.

Is there any way of stopping iTunes from transferring new apps? It's doing my head in now, especially when it's a game that's over a GB in size!

 

[G.House]

Just get an external HDD for your iTunes Library.

 

[dannywalls76]

What, and just have all my apps on that too? That is one solution, but surely if I tell iTunes not to sync apps, it should work both ways, shouldn't it?

 

[gpsouza]

Just get an external HDD for your iTunes Library.

Ok, but if I connect my iPad and iPhone without the HDD connected, it would still try to sync my apps, right?

And if I do that, how do I play my iTunes library without the HDD?

 

[dannywalls76]

In short, you can't. I don't think All I want is my music, films and TV shows in my iTunes library and my Apps and Books to be managed on my devices. It can't be that hard.

 

[dannywalls76]

I've just had a play about and, on syncing my iPhone, iTunes deleted all but 5 of my apps, which it then transferred back into my iTunes library.