Itunes being a pain syncing etc

[itsdavidjones]

Hi all,

My dilemma is:

Ive recently upgraded from a 3GS to a 4. the 3gs was originally sync'd with my mac as this was before the icloud days. Now ive got the 4 i started this from icloud backup without being attached to the mac.

now, when i plug the iphone 4 into the imac, it tells me i have to either set up as a new phone or restore from a backup from early 2012 when i last plugged my old 3gs into itunes. I do this and then im allowed to add music,. however I obviously lose all messages, data, apps etc. I restore from icloud toget all my data and stuff back, but as a result itunes goes into "I dont know you anymore" mode.

What i want is:

To be able to sync my iPhone 4 with my mac without losing all data.


I use the same apple Id for imac, ipad and iphone. Why is apple so anal about this? Ive never had this issue before.

Ive tried 3rd party apps that apparently allow you to drag and drop songs in, but this doesnt seem to work on ios 6


ANY HELP WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED

 

[Skull One]

I know you are frustrated, but this is a family oriented site. So keep the topic and post clean please.

 

[willerz2]

Do the reverse of what you're trying to do. Instead of getting everything into your iPhone, get everything out of your iPhone, restore it to a new copy of iOS, plug it back into your Mac, sync and do the initial setup to basically keep iTunes from ever bothering you again, then manually sync everything you ripped out of your iPhone originally by literally, selecting each category of items (all music, then all pictures, then all contacts, etc etc) and dragging them over your iPhone on the left side of the menu bar on iTunes and release once it lets you. Normally there'll be a delay of a few seconds before it goes from "cannot drag and drop here" to "okay, release and it'll sync"

 

[itsdavidjones]

Ok cool

Right so I plug it in and set it up as a new iPhone on he iMac. But how do I go about manually getting back all my stuff?

I'm so used to iCloud just doing all the work for me!!

 

[willerz2]

Did you manually back up your iTunes by rooting it using a Mac app like iExplorer? Otherwise it'll restore from a backup that you've made or have.

 

[itsdavidjones]

Did you manually back up your iTunes by rooting it using a Mac app like iExplorer? Otherwise it'll restore from a backup that you've made or have.

This may as well have been written in polish lol I have I explorer but have never done this backup in there.

I swear apple added this whole iCloud thing to make life easier!!!

 

[willerz2]

It only makes life easier if you have enough room on your iCloud.

 

[itsdavidjones]

Yeah I have plenty n iCloud. However the issue here is if I sync it with my iMac, I lose all my contacts and messages and everything else.

How does this I Explorer work? Where in I Explorer can I make a backup of my iPhone? And how do I go about re. Syncing just messages contacts et cetera to my phone after the music on it on iTunes