- Sync Text Messages To Computer
- How To Sync Message App On Mac To Phone Number
- How To Connect Iphone Messages To Mac
Better Alternative Way to Sync iMessages Between iPhone and Mac. FoneDog’s iOS Data Backup and Restore is one of the best ways to sync your iMessage from iPhone to Mac and vice versa. The software program allows you to easily backup and restores your iOS data, including your messages. This will enable the backup of messages to the iCloud. Make sure that the MacBook is updated to at least the “macOS High Sierra 10.13.5” version or later. Also, make sure that the messages app is set up properly. Open the “Messages” app on the MacBook and click on the “Messages” option in the top left corner. On iPhone, go to Settings Messages Text Message Forwarding, then choose which devices to allow to send and receive text messages from this iPhone. A verification code then appears on each device. Enter that code on your iPhone. On Mac, open Messages, then choose Messages Preferences. Click Accounts, then select your iMessage account.
Syncing iPhone to Mac was a regular activity just a few years ago. With faster mobile speeds, more space, great streaming apps like Spotify and Listen, and more people syncing their data with iCloud, the need to physically sync isn’t as great as it used to be. Particularly once Apple made it so that iOS updates didn’t have to run through iTunes on your Mac.
But, let's face it, we still want to add movies, music, and TV shows to our iPhones. We also want to save our photos and videos directly to our Macs from time to time. That’s when we need to sync our iPhones with iTunes.
In this guide, we’ll reveal some best practices for syncing. We also have some secret tips for maintaining a clean and optimized Mac that is free of junk cache files generated during syncing.
How to sync iOS devices with Mac
Syncing iPhone with Mac via cable
The most common way to sync iPhone to Mac is with the cable that came with your phone. Use this cable to connect your iPhone to your Mac and then launch iTunes (if it doesn’t launch automatically) to start syncing your media.
iTunes doesn’t just help you sync your media. Here are some other popular syncing options to get the most of your iPhone and Mac:
- Sync notes from iPhone to Mac
- Sync iPhone contacts to your Mac
- Sync messages from iPhone to Mac
- Sync Mac calendar with iPhone
These are easy to sync in iTunes or by turning on iCloud sync in each app. A little more challenging is how to sync Outlook calendar with iPhone.
Sync Outlook calendar with iPhone
Recently, Outlook 2016 had problems syncing with iTunes but the problem seems to have been resolved. Just make sure everything is up to date.
To sync Outlook calendar with your iPhone follow these steps:
- Make sure the iTunes plugin is added to Outlook plugins (File > Options > Add-ins > COM Add-ins). Note - Outlook 2016 doesn’t use the plugin to sync anymore so it won’t be there for this version.
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch iTunes.
- In iTunes click on your iPhones name and then click on the Info tab.
- Scroll down to calendars and choose the calendars you want synced.
- Click Apply.
The same method can be used to sync Outlook contacts with your iPhone - just look for the Contacts section on the Info tab.
iPhone Sync to iTunes over Wi-Fi
If connecting your iPhone to your Mac via a cable feels like a strait jacket, you can now break free by setting up a sync through your Wi-Fi connection. That’s right, no more looking for cables. If only we could charge this way as well…hey Apple, what are you waiting for?
There is a downside to this freedom; the speeds won’t be as fast as when connected with a cable. But if you value convenience over speed, let’s get to the steps you’ll need to setup wireless iPhone sync with Mac.
- Unfortunately you’ll need your USB cable to set up Wi-Fi syncing for the first time.
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac via your cable.
- Launch iTunes and click on the iPhone icon.
- Click on the Summary tab.
- Under Options check the Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi box and click Apply.
- Now you can remove the cable. Freedom is at hand!
That’s it. Now, in future, when your iPhone connects to the same Wi-Fi connection it will be available for syncing in iTunes.
Now go ahead and throw that iPhone cable in the trash!*
*Don’t do that. That’s a terrible idea.
Clean up iTunes Syncing Cached Files
How to sync iPhones to iTunes? Solved!
Now let’s look at some iTunes tips and tricks to solve other iTunes problem – its love of wasting space.
For every good thing iTunes does it seems to generate unnecessary junk (it can be photos caches like images copies from iCloud, music caches like duplicates from iTunes, movies files caches from media players, or download histories of iOS devices); junk which it won’t clean up itself. With a few easy steps you can clean up after iTunes to free up space on your hard disk and make your system faster.
Remove iTunes Backups
iPhone backups can take up a lot of space. You may find that you have old backups that aren’t needed anymore or a current backup that you’d like to move to an external drive or the cloud to save space on your system.
Luckily this is not hard to do.
- Open iTunes Click Menu > Preferences > Devices
- Control-click the backup you want and show in finder to then move it somewhere else.
- To delete instead, highlight the backup and click Delete Backup.
- Confirm
You can also use CleanMyMac X, which is a specialist Mac cleaning app that is brilliant for removing iTunes junk. It even has a section called iTunes Junk!
Remove Old iOS Updates
If you update your phone by syncing your iPhone with iTunes, instead of running the update from the phone itself, then you’ll probably find that iTunes has kept the old iOS setup files. After the update, these files serve no purpose other than to annoy you when you discover how much space they are wasting.
To manually find these old iOS update files navigate to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates and move them to the trash.
Alternatively, to automatically remove old iOS updates and other iTunes junk, CleanMyMac is the one-click solution. It only removes files you don’t need, which gives peace of mind for those who worry about doing something wrong.
Remove Broken iTunes Downloads
It’s frustrating enough when an iTunes download fails. But it’s even worse when you realize this download, which you can’t even use, is taking up your precious hard drive space. Thankfully, removing broken downloads is as easy as it gets with CleanMyMac X.
Within CleanMyMac you will find a Smart Clean scan as well as a specialized iTunes Junk scan. Either option will quickly hunt down your broken downloads and present you with the option to remove them from your system with a single satisfying click.
Remove Photos Cache
Cache files serve a purpose, increasing the speed of certain actions, but the real world impact is minimal. With all the syncing that occurs today, you may not realize just how many cache files are being created without your knowledge.
One of the worst offenders is Photos, so if your Mac is low on space one of the first things to look at is your Photos cache folder. You’d be surprised how big it can get. One solution is to delete the cache folder. Your actual library photos will remain untouched.
To remove your Photos cache files:
- Open Finder and control click on Pictures > Photos Library and click Show Package Contents.
- Drag the Photos Cache folder to the trash.
Important Note - Manually deleting the cache folder could potentially cause a corruption of the Photos app. A safer and easier solution would be to download and install CleanMyMac X.
To use CleanMyMac to safely remove your Photos cache files:
Sync Text Messages To Computer
- Download, launch CleanMyMac
- Select Photos Junk in the left menu
- Locate your library and click Scan
- Click Clean
Remove Duplicates
Speaking of photos, once you start using multiple devices it’s very easy for your iPhone photos to get backed up and duplicated all over the place. Things can get messy very quickly, and an iPhone sync with Photos just complicates the process even more.
Manually looking through your system for duplicate photos is a nightmare. Instead, try a Gemini 2 The Duplicate Finder. It will quickly scan your system and present all your duplicate photos, making it incredibly easy to choose what stays and what goes.
It’s not just duplicate photos that you can get rid of. You can also use the app to scan your iTunes library for duplicates of songs that you’ve accumulated over the years.
You’ll be amazed at how many of them are hidden all over your Mac, and how much space you can free up. As with CleanMyMac, Gemini is incredibly safe. In fact, if you remove a photo by mistake, it can easily bring that photo back from the dead.
One-stop sync solution for your iPhone
We’ve described several ways of syncing different data between Mac and iPhone or any iOS running device. But if you are looking for one-stop solution that will sync all data between Mac and your iPhone directly, within one app and without the need to use cloud storages — take a look at SyncMate.
This app will sync contacts, calendar events, folders with files, Safari bookmarks, photos and music directly between native apps on Mac and iPhone. You can mount iPhone as Mac disk and work with it’s content in Finder, view text messages and calls history on Mac, backup iPhone data on Mac; sync can be performed in background and automatically. Note, due to iOS limitations folders on Mac can be synced with User/media folder on iOS only, as well as Mount option allows mounting this exact folder only. More about syncing iOS with Mac using SyncMate along with the full list of sync options and sync directions for them can be found here.
BTW, iOS devices are not the only ones SyncMate supports. With SyncMate you can sync data on Mac with Android, mounted or MTP devices, other Macs, Google, iCloud and Dropbox accounts, Microsoft service — one app fits all.
Sync and Swim
When we know we have to sync our Mac with iPhone, it can feel like a chore. We hope that this guide has given you the tools to make syncing iPhone to iTunes much easier and more productive. Not just for you but also for your Mac, which will surely benefit from a good iTunes cleaning from CleanMyMac, Gemini, and the manual tips we revealed in this guide.
Here’s to the beginning of a new and harmonious relationship between your Mac and your iPhone.
These might also interest you:
If you want to take the least time checking and responding to emails, consider syncing your email accounts across all your devices. The good thing is that, nowadays, you can set up your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to use any email provider of your choice, be it Apple Mail, Gmail, or whatever you use.
In an ideal case, you should be able to see the exact emails sorted in the same folders across your devices. However, sometimes the changes you make on one device may not reflect across all your devices.
A common issue with Apple Mail is that sometimes it may use a local storage to store changes you made on different email folders, instead of your mail server. This issue often leads to emails not syncing across devices. In fact, many users have complained of emails not syncing in Apple devices. Some of them are not receiving emails in Apple devices.
So, if you have had trouble finding a specific email on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone, it may be nothing you are doing wrong. Probably your Mac is storing emails in local folders instead of up on the server, making it hard to sync your emails. If that is the case, don’t fret. We will try to resolve this problem and show you how to sync emails in multiple Apple devices.
What Causes This Issue?
Whether or not your mailboxes sync across all your Apple devices depends on the type of email account you have. If you are using an IMAP email account, you can create mailboxes on your email account mail server. Mailboxes created in ‘On My Mac’ are local, so you may not access them on your other Apple devices.
Let us put it this way: When you use IMAP mail on your computer, the default location for storing your sent emails, drafts, and achieves is on your mail server. If you configure your email settings to use POP, then you will have a hard time syncing your emails across all your Apple devices. If you aren’t sure whether you are using IMAP or POP, launch the Mail app and go to Mail Preferences, and then check the sidebar. If it says ‘IMAP’ underneath your account, then things are sorted out, but it reads ‘POP’, then you know why things aren’t working out.
How to Sync Emails in Multiple Apple Devices?
How To Sync Message App On Mac To Phone Number
Before making any change on your Mac or the Mail app, for example, tweaking your email settings and moving messages, make sure you create a backup. If you have done that, then there is one more thing: Take into account the following points as you resolve your email syncing issue:
- If you are using a web browser to access your emails, then you may not need to sync anything since your email is stored in the cloud.
- Also, if you are using iCloud, IMAP, or Exchange accounts exclusively, then the only thing you need to do is confirm a few settings to ensure everything syncs for you.
- Let us point out one more thing. We assume that you are using an IMAP account (which we highly recommend), rather than the old-style POP account.
If you are not receiving emails in Apple devices, try these troubleshooting steps one at a time:
Step 1. Make Sure Mail Settings Haven’t Changed
If you can’t locate your sent or received emails on your Mac, there is a high chance that your iOS Mail app settings are to blame. Typically, the default settings of the Mail app on your iOS device is set to local storage instead of mail server.
The opposite also holds true. If you can’t access your emails on your iOS devices, then the settings on your Mac could be the culprit. In short, where your mail is stored plays a key role in syncing your email across Apple devices. You can check where your Mac stores sent, deleted, drafts, and archive folders. Just open your Mail app, then look for the Mailboxes link (usually in Mail’s toolbar) and click on it. A screenshot will pop up with all the email folders. Everything you see here is a mirror image of what is found in your mail server.
Step 2. Use Mail Connection Doctor
You should also ensure that your Mail app can communicate with the mail server. Use Mail Connector Doctor to find out why the Mail app isn’t receiving emails in your Apple devices. Usually, Mail Connection Doctor checks the status of your Internet connection.
To activate Mail Connection Detector, follow the steps below:
- Open the Mail app on your Mac and go to Windows > Connection Doctor.
- If your internet connection is okay, but Mail Connection Doctor shows a red dot next to your email account, find out more information about the issue in the Details column.
- If the Details column shows that the Mail app couldn’t connect to the server, your email account settings may be incorrect.
Step 3: Sync Your Mail with the Server
Mac
Your issue could arise when the Mail app does not connect with the mail server. Check the Mail app preferences to ensure that the settings on your email accounts are up to date.
How To Connect Iphone Messages To Mac
Here is how to do it:
- Open your Mail program and go to Mail > Preferences.
- Next, click on the Accounts tab in the toolbar.
- Now, choose the problematic accounts in the left sidebar, and then click on the MailboxBehaviors tab.
- Under Mailbox Behaviors, there is a drop-down of different mailboxes.
- If you click on Sent Mailbox, you are likely to see that yours is set to store emails on the ‘On My Mac’ Change this to the Sent Messages or Sent folder, and you should be good to go.
iOS Device
Apart from configuring your email account settings on your Mac, you may also want to fix incorrect settings on your iOS devices.
To do that, follow these straightforward instructions:
- Go to Settings on your device and tap the setting for Mail.
- Highlight the account you want to make changes to, and then tap the email address for that account.
- Wait for the AccountsSettings window to appear, then scroll down to find the Advance button and tap on it.
- If you highlight the Mail Behaviors section, you will see four mailboxes: Send Mailbox, Drafts Mailbox, Deleted Mailbox, and Archive Mailbox.
- If you click on one of the mailboxes, for instance, Drafts Mailbox, you will see two sections labeled: ‘On My iPad’ and ‘On The Server’. If your emails are not syncing across devices, there is a good chance that the ‘On My iPad’ option is chosen.
- Tap the folder you want your drafts to be saved on your server.
- After that, click on the Advanced button and check if the Mailbox Behaviors button has the mailbox you chose listed next to it.
- You need to repeat this process for each of your mailboxes.
Step 4. Remove Your Emails Accounts and Add Them Back
If the issue persists, consider removing your email accounts on your Mac and then adding them back. However, you should use this trick as your last resort.
Clean Up Your Mac
Syncing mail is one part of improving your Mac’s user-experience. The other part is making sure your device works at an optimum level. The best way to improve your Mac’s performance is to eliminate bad sectors, which usually cause Mac errors. You accomplish this task using an intuitive Mac repair tool like Outbyte MacRepair. After scanning your system, this tool will restore corrupted or missing system files, remove junk on your Mac, and then tune it up for top performance.
To this end, you should be able to sync your emails across your Apple devices. Let us know how it goes in the comments section below.
If you’re running into errors and your system is suspiciously slow, your computer needs some maintenance work. Download Outbyte PC Repair for Windows, Outbyte Antivirus for Windows, or Outbyte MacRepair for macOS to resolve common computer performance issues. Fix computer troubles by downloading the compatible tool for your device.
See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy Policy.
See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy Policy.