Transferring iTunes and iPhone from XP to Mac

A

Ash9414

macrumors 6502
First of all, yes, I have searched through the forums (and various other places) but there's a specific answer that I'm looking for.

I read this:

I know this thread is fairly old but it helped me, so though I'd update it with my experiences.


I wanted to move everything from Windows XP to Windows 7. I have all my music on a network drive so this did not need to be copied, but I didn't want to loose my preferences, backups or synch settings.

So here's what I did:-

Installed iTunes on the Windows 7 machine and fired it up to complete the install using the default settings (these are unimportant and will get overwritten).

I copied the contents from the following XP folders into the respective Win7 folders:-
[XP] C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Apple Computer\
[W7] C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\

[XP] C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\
[W7] C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\

[XP] C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\
[W7] C:\Users\{username}\Documents\My Music\iTunes\
Then fired up iTunes on the Windows 7 PC and it was all there; iTunes preferences, device synch settings, Outlook calendars, Outlook contacts, device backups, etc.

Tested the install by synchronising my iPhone and iTouch. Nothing was deleted so all was good.

De-authorised my Win XP machine and packed it away for good!


Hope this helps someone.
Click to expand...

And what I want to know is, once I've copied those three folders mentioned in the quote, where do I transfer them to on the Mac?

If any more information is needed, please ask, and thanks for your help.
 
Ok...so there's actually an easier way to transfer your iTunes library from your PC running WinXp to your Mac. Home Sharing in iTunes. But since you already did all that work, you can just drag your folder containing all your music onto the iTunes icon and iTunes on your Mac will build your library. OR...you can copy it to your iTunes media folder which is typically /Users/<youruser>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music but then you would need to add that folder to your library, so dragging your folder containing all your music onto the iTunes icon would probably be easier.

Hope that helps.
 
Ash9414 said:
But that won't copy over my iPhone backups/syncs etc as well?
Click to expand...

No it won't. But, let's look at what you're trying to ultimately accomplish. The backup retains all your contacts, calendars, notes, text messages and photos and other data on your iPhone. When you transfer all your iTunes content to your Mac, and you sync, this will create a backup on your Mac of your iPhone, and the backup file will now exist on your Mac.
 
I went ahead and went through a similar process before I saw your post. Basically, I copied over the whole iTunes folder and put it in the Music folder, started iTunes (it was all there), authorized my Mac, copied the backups from my PC to the right location on my Mac, then synced and it didn't even recognise it was on a different computer. :D
 
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