e-books, and audiobooks
Playlists you’ve created on your iPhone
And if you save pictures from email messages, from the iPhone camera, from web pages (by pressing and holding down on an image and then tapping the Save Image button), or from screen shots (by pressing simultaneously the volume up and side button on Face ID models or the Home and side buttons simultaneously on Touch ID models), these too can be synced.
The following sections focus only on syncing. Need help acquiring apps, music, movies, podcasts, or anything else for your iPhone? This book contains chapters dedicated to each of these topics. Just flip to the most applicable chapter for help.
Music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts
You use the Music, Movies, TV Shows, and Podcasts panes to specify the media that you want to copy from your computer to your iPhone. If you don’t see these panes, make sure that your iPhone is still selected in the iPhone section of the General or Summary pane; refer to Figures 3-1 and 3-2, respectively.
Music and music videos
To transfer music to your iPhone, select the Music pane and then select the Sync Music check box. Note that Figure 3-3 shows the Music pane in a Finder window under macOS Big Sur; if you’re using iTunes, click Music in its sidebar and you’ll see the same options shown in Figure 3-3.
You can then select the option for Entire Music Library or Selected Artists, Albums, Genres, and Playlists, as shown in Figure 3-3. If you choose the latter, select the check boxes next to the particular artists, albums, genres, and playlists you want to transfer. You also can choose to include music videos by selecting the appropriate check boxes at the top of the pane.
FIGURE 3-3: Use the Music pane to copy music and music videos from your computer to your iPhone.
FIGURE 3-4: Try to sync too much music and you’ll see this.
To avoid such errors, select playlists, artists, albums, and genres that total less than the free space on your iPhone, which is displayed in the capacity bar before you sync.
Hover your cursor over any color to see a bubble with info on that category, as shown in Figure 3-5.
You can find similar information about space used and space remaining on your iPhone by tapping Settings ⇒ General ⇒ iPhone Storage. The iPhone’s display isn’t as pretty as the one pictured here, but it is useful when you need that info and you’re not near your computer.
Finally, if you select the Automatically Fill Free Space with Songs check box, any free space on your iPhone will be filled with music.
FIGURE 3-5: Point at a color to see its details.
Movies
To transfer movies to your iPhone, select your iPhone in the sidebar of a Finder window and click the Movies tab or pane. Next, select the Sync Movies check box. You can also select the Automatically Include check box to choose an option for movies you want to include automatically, as shown in Figure 3-6 using Finder. If you choose an option other than All, you can optionally select individual movies and playlists by selecting the boxes in appropriate sections.
TV shows, podcasts, books, and audiobooks
The procedure for syncing TV shows is almost the same as for syncing movies. First, select the TV Shows pane or the TV Shows tab. Next, select the Sync TV Shows check box to enable TV show syncing. Then choose how many episodes to include from the first pop-up menu and whether you want all shows or only selected shows from the second pop-up menu. If you want to also include individual episodes or episodes on playlists, select the appropriate check boxes in the Shows, Episodes, and Include Episodes from Playlists sections of the TV Shows pane.
To transfer podcasts to your iPhone, select the Podcasts pane or the Podcasts tab and then select the Sync Podcasts check box. Next, you can include however many podcasts you want by making selections from the Automatically Include and All or Selected Podcasts pop-up menus.
You transfer books and audiobooks the same way — sync them all or select individual titles.
FIGURE 3-6: Your choices in the Movies pane determine which movies are copied to your iPhone.
Photos
To sync photos between computers and iDevices, you must enable iCloud Photos (formerly known as iCloud Photo Library).
You can also copy photos to your iPhone from the Photos app (Mac only) or any folder on your computer that contains images (Mac or PC).
To enable iCloud Photos:
On your iPhone: Choose Settings ⇒ yourname ⇒ iCloud ⇒ Photos, and then turn on iCloud Photos.
On your Mac: Choose System Preferences ⇒ Apple ID (Catalina or later) or iCloud (Mojave or earlier), and then enable the check box for iCloud Photos.
