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How to disable app syncing without removing all apps and their data from iOS device?

O

ozthegweat

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 20, 2007
247
229
Switzerland
What always bugged me, before iOS 5, was that I had to sync all those apps installed on my iPhone and iPad to my Mac, for various reasons: it takes away space (around 20GB, which is a lot on a small MacBook Air SSD), everytime an app gets updated, it had to be transferred again, and you can't use those apps on the Mac anyway. But I did it, so I had a backup of the app data.

Now with iOS 5 and backup to iCloud, all app data is being saved to iCloud. There's no need to keep syncing apps to my Mac.

So I tried disabling app syncing in iTunes, but there's no option to stop syncing but leave all the apps installed on the iOS device. It's either keep syncing, or stop syncing and lose all your apps, and, more importantly, all app data. If it was only the apps themselves, I could download them again, but the deletion of app data is the real killer.

Is there a way to do that? Would it work if I stopped app syncing and then restored the iOS device from an iCloud backup? Would I get to keep the app data?
 
J

joyless

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2011
28
0
Awesome question, i'd really like to know why the hell i need to keep ~10gb of apps in my iTunes, now that apps are being downloaded from iCloud after restore. PC free, riiiiiiight....
 
T

tooobe

macrumors regular
Nov 3, 2008
141
21
You can delete the apps from the computer (the actual .app files) but keep them in iTunes and it will keep syncing app data just fine, as long as the app is still present on the phone. I'm doing this myself.

----------

Or an alternative might be to backup your phone to iCloud, and then disable app sync in iTunes, thus deleting all data on the phone, and then restoring the phone from iCloud? I haven't tried this, but it could work. Or it just reenables the sync, i'm not sure... worth a try?
 
J

joyless

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2011
28
0
tooobe said:
[/Or an alternative might be to backup your phone to iCloud, and then disable app sync in iTunes, thus deleting all data on the phone, and then restoring the phone from iCloud? I haven't tried this, but it could work. Or it just reenables the sync, i'm not sure... worth a try?
Click to expand...

this actually makes a lot of sense, anyone tried it?
 
R

Rubo Draco

macrumors regular
Sep 21, 2011
151
1
- open iTunes and push the buttons "Ctrl" "+" ","
Takes you to settings (preferences)

- Click on Store and uncheck all check box

Although I'm on Windows so... Find out how to do it on your Mac
Hope that's what you're looking for! #
 
D

donnaw

macrumors 65816
Apr 19, 2011
1,134
6
Austin TX
ozthegweat said:
Yes, that's what I proposed in the last paragraph of the first post... haven't tried it yet, but I think I'll get to it this weekend...
Click to expand...

This is an interesting concept. Would you please post your results if you do it. I would try it myself but I'm going out-of-town for 2 weeks and won't be able to until I get back.

Thanks
 
O

ozthegweat

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 20, 2007
247
229
Switzerland
Sorry guys, didn't get to it yet, as my internet connection at home is not working right now. Should be fixed tomorrow however.

But I'm afraid that the sync setting is saved on the device as well, which means an iOS device restored from iCloud would still have the sync options enabled. Well, we'll see...
 
M

Mobile923

macrumors 6502
Sep 20, 2007
298
26
New York, NY
ozthegweat said:
Sorry guys, didn't get to it yet, as my internet connection at home is not working right now. Should be fixed tomorrow however.

But I'm afraid that the sync setting is saved on the device as well, which means an iOS device restored from iCloud would still have the sync options enabled. Well, we'll see...
Click to expand...

Uncheck the Sync Apps, OK the warning. Sync. IMMEDIATELY UNPLUG.

Voila. Keep apps, No more syncing.
 
S

Scriz

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2008
16
0
I clicked apply and immediately unplugged and 5 of my apps got deleted. I really wish apple would reevaluate that "feature."
 
O

ozthegweat

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 20, 2007
247
229
Switzerland
Well, I just tried the iCloud restore thing. The iPad was restored from iCloud without problems, but when I connected it to iTunes, the Sync Apps option was already checked. Seems like this option is saved on the iPad...
 
J

joyless

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2011
28
0
after first sync itunes forced me to transfer all my purchased apps from iphone back to itunes, even though "sync apps" box is still unchecked :(
 
J

jman240

macrumors 6502a
May 26, 2009
806
253
Scriz said:
I clicked apply and immediately unplugged and 5 of my apps got deleted. I really wish apple would reevaluate that "feature."
Click to expand...

Did you have wifi sync on or off?

I'm going to def try this later. Sounds awesome!
 
urkel

urkel

macrumors 68030
Nov 3, 2008
2,795
917
This is a problem that is driving me nuts because I use an Air and want to quit syncing to the computer and instead sync to iCloud. And not only does this affect Apps, it also does the same thing with Music Match:

1) UNCHECKING APP SYNC ERASES ALL INSTALLED APPS, FOLDER STRUCTURES AND SAVE SETTINGS (games/settings/etc). Not to mention redownloading 15GB of Apps on each iPad and iPhone (we have 4 iOS devices).

2) TURNING ON MUSIC MATCH ON iOS ERASES ALL LOCAL MUSIC AND PLAYLISTS. So just like with Apps, my meticulously organized music is wiped out and Im expected to redownload every song AND manually make new playlists on each device.

Im surprised there isnt a solution for this yet because moving everything to the crowd does make sense but unlike other cloud services (contacts, bookmarks, calendars) there is no option to MERGE which means shutting off the local App or Music sync destroys everything.

Hopefully someone has a solution that doesnt result in blaming the end user for being "lazy".
 
J

joyless

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2011
28
0
GuillaumeV said:
Do I have to understand that it doesn't work ?
Click to expand...
No, it doesnt, iTunes is forcing me to download all apps back to iTunes.

HOWEVER

check out this post:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13757639/

i did what this guy said and...its working :) i tried it first with just one app and it worked as expected, so decided to delete all my iTunes apps and i can sync no problem!

i dont know is that expected behaviour or just some sort of a bug, because clearly the message says that all iphone apps will be deleted, but they remain untouched...

anyways, check it out, it worked great for me and now my HD is 10GB+ lighter :)
 
gage006

gage006

macrumors regular
Feb 9, 2010
158
3
joyless said:
No, it doesnt, iTunes is forcing me to download all apps back to iTunes.

HOWEVER

check out this post:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13757639/

i did what this guy said and...its working :) i tried it first with just one app and it worked as expected, so decided to delete all my iTunes apps and i can sync no problem!

i dont know is that expected behaviour or just some sort of a bug, because clearly the message says that all iphone apps will be deleted, but they remain untouched...

anyways, check it out, it worked great for me and now my HD is 10GB+ lighter :)
Click to expand...

Followed the instructions exactly, didn't work at all. Wiped out all my apps. Restoring from iCloud now.
 
J

joyless

macrumors newbie
Oct 5, 2011
28
0
gage006 said:
Followed the instructions exactly, didn't work at all. Wiped out all my apps. Restoring from iCloud now.
Click to expand...

sorry to hear that mate. did you test with deleting just one app? i did before i decided to remove all my apps
 
M

Mobile923

macrumors 6502
Sep 20, 2007
298
26
New York, NY
nuthinking said:
I can't ever get the right moment to unplug, I guess, so or the app stays synched or it gets deleted. I have the latest version of all software. Probably they fixed this glitch?
Click to expand...

I just tried this just now and it worked.

Make sure you have Wi-Fi syncing disabled. The right moment to unplug is right when the iTunes screen says it's syncing.
 
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