syncing with Windows Phone software + iTunes question

[odoggyfresh]

I sync my music onto the SD card in my phone using the Windows Phone software running on Windows 7. I have it set up to use my iTunes library.

I am under the belief (I could be wrong) that each time I "sync" my phone, it rewrites every file (over 3000 songs) as well as syncing any new songs that have been added to my library since the last sync.

is there a way to just add the new songs onto my device, without having to re-sync my whole library? doing so takes forever, and is very unnecessary. I have known that the WP software is pretty bad, but I'm hoping there is a way to avoid re-syncing my whole library every time.

thanks

 

[vedichymn]

I'm using iTunes "sync" as well, and it only add/removes things that have changed, doesn't resync the whole library. In general, things are pretty slow on the transfer, but doesn't resync the entire library.

What are you syncing out of iTunes? Your whole library? A playlist?

 

[odoggyfresh]

I'm using iTunes "sync" as well, and it only add/removes things that have changed, doesn't resync the whole library. In general, things are pretty slow on the transfer, but doesn't resync the entire library.

What are you syncing out of iTunes? Your whole library? A playlist?

hm. I was under the impression that it was re-syncing my entire library since it was "adding" seemingly my entire library of songs that were already on the device, and like you said, takes forever.

and yeah I sync my whole library. my entire library is already on the SD card from the first time I used the WP software and waited while it put my whole library onto the card. after that I figured it would (should) be like iTunes, where you just plug in your device and it updates what needs to be updated quickly.

to be clear, I want to keep the songs that are currently on the SD card on there, but just add new ones that I've recently added to my iTunes library

maybe I am doing it wrong, when you sync, do you have the "sync all music" box checked? I tried syncing without that box checked, and just syncing a playlist of new songs, but then it said it was deleting all of the other songs.

 

[vedichymn]

My library is larger than my phone, so I just sync an iTunes smart playlist to my phone, which seems to work as you're expecting. Maybe this is a bug with the "sync all music" option?

 

[odoggyfresh]

posted this under the comments of the Preview 3 article, but figured I'd also post here for people who may not look at the comments on articles:

"not sure if this is true. but with the 2nd version of the preview, I always thought that every time I chose to "sync all music", it would wipe my device, and resync everything, instead of just adding new songs.

but I just tried the same "sync all music" with this new version, and it was much quicker, didn't go through the process of going through the thousands of songs I have.

for some reason it did delete about a 100 songs, then synced them again with the newly added songs to my library since my last sync.

has anyone else noticed this?"


so basically, the problem that I was originally having with Preview 2 has been seemingly fixed with Preview 3. Although, as stated above, it did go through the process of (seemingly) unnecessarily resyncing a few songs. but I believe my iTunes sometimes even does that with my iPod touch. the only explanation I can think of for that would be something like the song file's metadata had changed, but I haven't made any adjustments on my own

 

[odoggyfresh]

well, after relaunching the Preview 3, it is back to trying to sync all of my files again. who knows

 

[rumble11]

I'm having the same problem. I resorted to google which led me to your post. Have you had any luck sorting this out?

I'm using a HTC 8S and Windows 7 with Windows phone app 3.

 

[JimiDiGriz]

I just don't get it. I've got all my music and podcasts in itunes after years of having an ipod touch and I'm quite happy to continue using itunes as the 'source' library though want to start using my 820 as my mobile device for audio. Syncing is all over the place. I get 'missing' albums (though I can see them in explorer on the SD card), I get duplicate albums, 'missing' podcasts (again visible in explorer) and the podcasts are all in a random order rather than by date. You also can't see the whole title of some podcasts as it runs off the side of the screen so no way of working out manually which is the next episode. Added to all this I have music set to sync specific albums and just want to sync new podcasts from itunes and it tries to sync everything again! Both music AND podcasts when I just want the new ones.... and as it is syncing everything from scratch I'm going to have the lottery of 'missing' albums and podcasts again, not to mention the time it takes to sync. Absolutely terrible experience and cannot believe MS allowed this to be released.

 

[odoggyfresh]

I'm having the same problem. I resorted to google which led me to your post. Have you had any luck sorting this out?

I'm using a HTC 8S and Windows 7 with Windows phone app 3.

I have found that creating smart playlists in iTunes that contain music added within the past month can be a fix for the time being. Then when I go to sync in the Windows Phone program. I just sync the smart playlist, it adds the new stuff to your library and doesn't delete anything from, it just removes the songs from being listed in the playlist if they shouldn't be in there anymore

 

[gnirkatto]

I think the issue is the following: WP SW is a f*****g piece of c**p.
I'm running another thread on this because I got so frustrated. I think this is how the SW works (please anyone who knows better correct me if I'm wrong, I'm desperately looking for a true syncing solution):

You connect the phone and start the SW.
Then you click the boxes of the items that you want to get synced.
Then you sync.
Then, if you are lucky, the content got moved over to your phone.
Then you disconnect the phone and enjoy music or whatever.
Later, you come back to your computer, wanting to sync again, as you want more/different content on your phone.
You connect, start SW, click the boxes of the new content, then sync.
And now the trouble starts:
The SW did NOT remember your settings from the previous sync sessions. So it believes all you want to have on your phone is what you check marked during your current session. Therefore it a.) deletes all content from your phone that is currently there and b.) moves the newly check marked content over. But nothing else.
It gets even sillyer: not only does it delete the - now not marked - content from the category that you are currently working on, but also all other categorie - because you didn't go there to check mark them again! It happened to me that all my images got deleted from the phone, because I just quickly wanted to move a new piece of music over to it.
Of course it is NOT doable to 1.) ALWAYS remember by heart what you already synced and 2.) to spend lots of time to re-configure the SW every time you restart it.
The only way that I found how to get this under control ist to ALWAYS check mark ALL ITEMS that you want to have on the phone, regardless of them being there already from a previous sync or not.

I am so p*****d off with this, that I decided to only manually drag and drop items from the PC to the phone via winbdows explorer. But that leads to other problems, which is a different story.