iTunes cannot sync to XS Max

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Have you tried resetting the settings on the iPhone?

Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.
 
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@pettycash,

The latest version of macOS High Sierra is 10.13.6 so maybe consider keeping up to date with that.

I also run macOS High Sierra and on my iMac, the latest iTunes is 12.8.1.2

Ian

Mine is 12.7.3.46

- - - Updated - - -

Have you tried resetting the settings on the iPhone?

Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.

This will be my last resort as it will be too much headache to re-do all the settings?
 
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Did you delete the plist preference file(s) for iTunes, like I asked in a previous post?


Bob -

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@pettycash,

The latest version of macOS High Sierra is 10.13.6 so maybe consider keeping up to date with that.

I also run macOS High Sierra and on my iMac, the latest iTunes is 12.8.1.2

Ian

It's 12.9.2 in my version of Mojave


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Did you delete the plist preference file(s) for iTunes, like I asked in a previous post?


Bob -

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I did not change any setting in iTunes but need to check when I am back home tonight. Maybe I should update to the newest version first?
 
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IWT


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Agree with Bob.

You should, in my view, update macOS High Sierra to 10.13.6 and iTunes to 12.8.1.2 (which is as high as you can go with High Sierra - 12.9.x is Mojave-specific).

Ian
 
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I updated my iTunes and it could then detect the new phone; however, instead of starting to sync, it forced me to select to do either of the following: set up the phone as a new phone, or restore it from a previous backup (i.e., old phone). I had no choice but picked restore, not to my surprises, the new settings were gone and I had to re-do them which was cumbersome. I want to know if this is the expected and proper behaviour with iTunes which does not seem to make any sense.
 

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If you haven't done it before it certainly can be a bit confusing but near the bottom of the page you see when updating/syncing/restoring you will see some options for backup location. You can backup to iCloud or the device and at the bottom you will see a check box that allows you to encrypt the backup. If you encrypt the backup all of your settings/preferences can be saved, if not just the content (downloaded apps etc) are saved.
This like many other seemingly laborious processes are there to protect your security. In this case it prevents someone from downloading all of your personal data by performing a restore to another iPhone. When encrypted your password is required to access the backup.
Personally I backup to iCloud and encrypt. That way I could walk into an Apple store, buy a new iPhone, restore everything to the new device via iCloud including email accounts, settings and passwords and use Find My iPhone to disable/lock or even erase my other iPhone. Great if your phone is stolen overseas for example.

PS. A friend of mine dropped her iPhone crossing the road last year and it was run over by a small van. Needless to say it was broken beyond repair. She was in the city at the time so she replaced it same day as it was insured. She couldn't believe that all she needed was her Apple ID to restore the iPhone in the Telco store to a duplicate of her broken one. Took about an hour she told me.
 
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I want to know if this is the expected and proper behaviour with iTunes which does not seem to make any sense.
Yes, its expected and is how one should do things in the first place. As soon as you get the new iPhone, use iTunes to restore from your last backup on the old iPhone and all of the settings should come over. Some things will need adjusting, of course, as the hardware is different, but all the essential stuff will be there. It's a bit like Migration Assistant in that if you do it when FIRST asked, it transfers cleanly, but if you ignore that first opportunity then it gets ugly fast. On the iPhone side, when you first power it up, the first thing to do is to connect it to the Mac, use iTunes to restore it. If you wait until later, it gets ugly fast, as you discovered. But what you saw when you did connect was as expected and proper.
 
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Thank you both, but the point I was trying to make was I didn't want a fully restore of my old phone but just the contact list. What I did was make a backup of my contact list (I deselected the songs, books, etc.) of my old phone with iTunes, then I expected that when I plugged in my new phone, iTunes would give me a chance to restore, fully or partially with a selection, from my previous backup. Tp my surprise, it forced a (full) restore unless I wanted to set it up as a new phone. Although I still got my contact list back, it came with all the old settings of the phone and I needed to re-do it subsequently.
 
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And so, the question is why iTunes did not ask for the categories I wanted to restore before pushing me for a full restore?
 
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Because that is how it works. It's all or none. The idea is that your old iPhone was how you liked things, so the backup stores those settings and options. Given that idea, the logical way to transfer from old to new is to have the new have all those same settings and options. Once you have all of that on the new, you can delete/change anything you want to for the new hardware.

You might look at iMazing. It's not free but it has more options that iTunes does. That doesn't help much now, but it could make the *next* transition easier.
 
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My apologies if I may ask another question: I have a video saved on my phone that is too large to be sent to my MBP by e-mail and I backed it up to iCloud. How do I download it from my MBP please? Must I do it via iTunes and how?
 

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You can use Dropbox or Google docs. That just send a link then you download to the Mac via the link. I do this a lot and Dropbox basic is free.


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I just did it with Airdrop, fast and neat, thanks. Will try other ways suggested and compare the performance later...
 
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Is it possible to use airdrop to transfer an audio file from map to iPhone? It did not seem to work for me. I turned on wi-fi and bluetooth on both devices.
 

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