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MacMan988

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 7, 2012
894
176
HI, I just noticed that my iPhone apps are getting transferred to my mac during the sync process. Now all apps installed on my iPhone are listed in my Mac's iTunes's apps section. Is it possible to prevent this from happening? I think having a copy of my iOS apps in my mac is completely unnecessary.
 
You shouldn't disable this.

It's nice to have a backup copy of apps, for these two situations:

1) An app is updated, and the update has a horrible bug or took out a feature you really love. If you have the apps backed up on your computer, you can easily roll back to the previous version.

2) An app is removed from the App Store. A good recent example is Blockchain! If you don't have a backup of the app, the next time you restore your phone you will lose it forever. Sometimes developers abandon the iOS platform and stop paying for their developer account. Boom, all their apps are gone.

Apps don't really take much space, and it's a good backup to have. It also speeds up restoring your phone big time, as all the apps will just install from your computer rather than having to download again.
 
You shouldn't disable this.

It's nice to have a backup copy of apps, for these two situations:

1) An app is updated, and the update has a horrible bug or took out a feature you really love. If you have the apps backed up on your computer, you can easily roll back to the previous version.

2) An app is removed from the App Store. A good recent example is Blockchain! If you don't have a backup of the app, the next time you restore your phone you will lose it forever. Sometimes developers abandon the iOS platform and stop paying for their developer account. Boom, all their apps are gone.

Apps don't really take much space, and it's a good backup to have. It also speeds up restoring your phone big time, as all the apps will just install from your computer rather than having to download again.

Yep, if Apple yanks an app out of the App Store, you have it backed up on your Mac (in addition to being on your device)
 
Is there any way to disable it?

I know it's possible to disable it because I have done it myself. Unfortunately, I can't remember how.

If at some point you told iTunes to transfer purchases on your iPhone to iTunes then it might be doing that automatically every time you sync. That would explain why the apps keep coming back. (Just a theory)
 
HI, I just noticed that my iPhone apps are getting transferred to my mac during the sync process. Now all apps installed on my iPhone are listed in my Mac's iTunes's apps section. Is it possible to prevent this from happening? I think having a copy of my iOS apps in my mac is completely unnecessary.

check syncing settings to see if 'sync apps' is on, say no if it says 'transfer purchases' or 'back up apps' during a sync/backup.

and you can also just delete them and move them to the trash if you like
 
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