Quick question on Syncing/BackUp

[Peter Franks]

Why would I tick the top 'Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected' in iTunes?

Wouldn't it then take my phone back to old state of when I'd last backed up on my Mac?

If it syncs when I plug it in, then it will sync my phone with what is backed up on laptop yes? Surely it should back up the current state of the phone rather than syncing? Apologies if I'm misreading this, but I'm confused. I want to back up, not sync yes? Only sync when restoring lost data? Or?

Also... Anyone know why it won't back up my pictures? I see you can do it in iPhoto, but isn't there a way of doing it on back-up in itunes, It's only showing me stuff from 2013, and iPhoto isn't automatic, I have to do that manually, but for some reason, it's also only showing me stuff from last year, after I imported

 

[FoxFifth]

Backing up and syncing are two different things. Backup makes a copy of some things on the phone and is stored in a file format that is primarily useable for restoring back to the phone in the event of a problem. You don't see the contents of the backup on the computer. Backup does backup Camera Roll photos, but as stated above they are stored in the backup files and you don't see the results. Here is a document that lists what is included in the backup: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946

Sync has other purposes. For example, if you have pictures on your computer that you took with a camera and wanted to move a copy of some of them to the iPhone you could do that with sync.

If you want to move photos from the Camera Roll on the phone to the computer, iTunes is not involved in that. Following are instructions: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4083

In my opinion it is a good idea to backup (either via iTunes or iCloud or both) and also to periodically import photos (either via the import described above or via Photo Stream or to a 3rd party site like Flickr). The forums are full of posts by people who thought they had their iPhone photos backed up only to find that they were not able to restore them for a variety of reasons. There is no substitute for actually seeing that they have successfully been copied to a second location.

It is also a good idea to sync contacts either to iCloud or using iTunes.

Photos and contacts are the things on my phone that I really care about so the above focuses on those.

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks for that. What instance would be ticking that top one, in other words syncing when you plug iphone in. Is that ever worth doing. I'd understand if it backed up as soon as you plugged in. That would make sense as I do that anyway. But the sync part.

 

[FoxFifth]

I can't think of a circumstance where automatically syncing when the iPhone is plugged in would make sense and I don't have mine set that way. There's probably some circumstance where it is useful to someone but don't know what it would be.

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks for your reply