Why won't iTunes import from the iPhone?

I decided to replace my ageing MacBook, a 2006 model, with a new 2012 version. Six years isn't bad for a laptop and with Mountain Lion just around the corner and the old MacBook not supported, it was time to get a new one.

The problem is getting all my iPhone and iPad apps, photos, music, videos, podcasts and so on onto the new Mac. I know there are ways connecting one Mac to another and transferring settings from one to another, but surely the obvious way to get everything onto a new Mac is simply to plug in an iPhone or iPad and let it sync. It's a no-brainer surely? After all, everything you want is on the device and you just have to plug it in.

If you have ever tried this you may have been met with limited success. Selecting various sync options displays a message warning that the selected content on the iPhone or iPad will be erased and replaced with the content in iTunes. Which is empty, because it's a new Mac. Why isn't there an option to sync the other way, from iPhone to Mac? It seems that iTunes only wants to sync one way.

It's not all bad though and items you purchase do get synced, so apps, movies, books, and music for example, appear in iTunes when you sync your iPhone or iPad. That's because buying something on one device enables it to be installed on other devices, You to have a copy of your purchase on up to five computers.

Three things didn't get synced though and the big one was music. The problem is that I have a lot of CDs, some of which were purchased before the iPod was invented. I don't want to buy digital versions of music I already have or pay a yearly fee to have them converted and stored on iCloud. Over the years I have copied CDs onto my Mac using iTunes and then synced them to my iPad and iPhone. Not one track got synced to my new MacBook though. It simply ignores any music you have ripped yourself. The solution is to copy the music to a shared folder on the new Mac or copy it using a USB memory stick and then use the library import option in iTunes.


Podcasts didn't get synced either and it would have been so easy for iTunes to read them off my iPhone when it was connected and add them to its library. Why did it not do this? I guess I'll have to subscribe to them all over again.


Purchased books appeared on the new Mac, but anything you add yourself, such as PDF files, which can be read in iBooks on the iPad and iPhone, did not appear. Once again, why not? Surely iTunes could have simply read them off the phone and add them to its library. I'll have to copy them to the new Mac, add them to iTunes manually and then sync.


Syncing iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches with iTunes could be much better than it is and it is currently limited and sometimes frustrating. It can sync things you don't want synced, like apps you deleted or apps you have on one device that you don't want on another, and it can refuse to sync things you want to sync, as is the case when you buy a new computer.