Last updated September 16th, 2019 at 05:40 pm
PC or Mac? People can usually fit into one of these two categories. Even as an IT professional I lean more toward one than the other. Contrary to popular belief I don’t know everything about every piece of technology! I work everyday with PCs but in the past few years I’ve gotten all too familiar with Apple Products. (Note: I’ve yet to own or really work with a Mac computer.) I ran into a problem recently that I’m sure a lot of people have dealt with. It’s very complicated to keep your apps organized across multiple devices. For example: My phone said I had less than 700mb of space left so I plugged into iTunes to see if I could clean it up a bit. In iTunes it said I had over 2 GB left of free space – say whaaat? Since my apps are on my iPhone and my iPad it seemed logical that if I delete them from my iTunes library then resync the device it should update and I’d have a happy iPhone, right? Umm no… It was such a mess. Long story short here are the steps I finally took to get my apps organized and free up a ton of space on my phone:
1. Delete all apps from iTunes:The first thing you want to do is clear ALL apps from your iTunes library. Simply select all your apps in the Applications section (CTRL+A) and DELETE. After you’ve got iTunes cleaned up we can clean up the device. Don’t worry – worst case scenario you can re-download your apps from your purchases.
2. Make sure all apps are deleted:Before you can move to your phone, you need to clear out the Mobile Applications folder in your iTunes library folder on the computer. It should be empty but if not just delete everything inside. The default location:
3. Remove apps you don’t want anymore from the device:To do this you will have to go through the apps on your device and decide which ones you want to keep. To delete simply press and hold on the app until you see the X appear on the top left (the apps will also start “dancing”).
3. Import apps from your device to iTunesOnce you’ve got the device cleaned up with just the apps you want to keep, go ahead and connect it to iTunes. At this point DO NOT SYNC IT. Instead, from the menu bar select File > Devices > Transfer Purchases from (your device name). This will bring all the apps from your phone and re-add them into your iTunes library.
4. Enjoy!
What Tech Tips would you like to see in the future? I would love to help with any tech questions you may have!
Matthew Wisnewski says
Good tip! -Matt