How to Sync Your iPhone With Multiple Computers
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All the parts are okay until i tried to find the older ID with hexedit and it stated the string is not found and I was stuck in a dead end. Any solutions?

The problem with MultiTunes is that it doesn't work with iTunes 11 according to their own website. Thanks to Lauren. Her suggestions worked.

1. Close everything; 2. Jailbreak your iDevice; 3. Install MultiTunes. Cya!

If you follow this tutorial could you sync your iphone with any computer that has itunes without having to delete your library?.

I tried this and it worked for my iPod, but not my iPhone and they were from the same library and had the same Library Persistent ID. Any idea why this might've happened?

1) Close iTunes 2) Update the .xml file with the persistent ID 3) delete sentinel file 4) Delete .itl file and recreate a text-file with the same name.

THANKKKSSSS TOO YOOUUU!!!!!!!!!! EVERYONE, THIS GUY HAS THE KEY!!! Its 3:18 in the morning, and i have finally concluded my search for this single elusive answer!! KUDOS!! The trick wasn't working for my iphone until I did THIS!! Thank you! Quote of Damian: 1) Close iTunes 2) Update the .xml file with the persistent ID 3) delete sentinel file 4) Delete .itl file and recreate a text-file with the same name. THANKS DAMIAN!!!

this option is not working for me it resets to the original value what should be done please tell

I have tried this several times, but the ID keeps getting reset within the "iTunes Library.itl" file which then updates the .xml file. I have even tried setting the .itl file to read only but then Itunes won't open complaining that the file is locked. Wow. I never had an issue copying music from anywhere with my droid.

easy uh?

I'm pretty sure this no longer works on iTunes 11

My iTunes Library.itl file contains all NULLs (00 00 00...) Is this normal ? Possibly because I don't sync music automatically, but manually ?

That's probably because your iTunes is open, but (refer to what I said above, I think they patched it in iTunes 11.) Everything seems to revert to the old Persistent ID. I also noticed that there is a file named "Sentinel" (If you show hidden folders.) Using HexEdit, you'll see that it also has the ID in it. I changed all 3 ID's (iTunes library.itl, iTunes Music Library.xml and the Sentinel's file ID) with iTunes 11 reverting it straight back to the original IDs.. Pretty sure I've done everything correctly, iTunes was also closed for the duration.

I couldn't get it to work with iTunes 11 so I decided to use gSyncit and open a Google mail account for contacts/calendars. I was already syncing Tasks/Notes with Toodledo using gSyncit so that wasn't a big deal at this point. I just find Apple is not making my life any easier despite what they say. The Palm TX was so much simpler - all apps were syncing automagically to Palm Desktop on multiple computers. Each 3rd party app was installing a conduit where needed (time sheet, encrypted notes...), and you only had 1 button to press to sync everything. And your data was local on your own machines. With Apple you have to install other pieces of software on top of iTunes/Outlook, open up accounts on different Web services, and your data is dispersed overs a few Internet servers (cloud) over which you have absolutely no control. There are advantages to that too, mind you, but only if I happen to have my iPhone stolen while away at the end of the world (not often...) Bad Apple, instead of improving they make things ever so complicated.

hi...while saving itunes music library.xml in apple editor after changing the persistent key, it shows following syntax error- A “<” can’t go here. plsss tell a way out....

are u sure u did not tamper with anything else in there?.... btw it seems to b a 2 month old query...did u happen to fix it by now?

In stage 8 of the instructions, you say that we have to replace the OLD LIBRARY PERSISTENT ID with the no. obtained from stage 1 - but this is the SAME number surely? Please clarify. Thanks.

Any way to do this for a new mac which has mountain lion? Mountain lion is not allowing itunes 10 to be downgraded to itunes9 by uninstalling and the technic specified in this post does not work because itunes reverts the ID back to what it was. Any more options?

did you ever get it working in iTunes 10 on mountain lion? I've used several different text editors and check the string in both lib files and it keeps reverting back to the old persistent id.

yes it worked after some of these steps - first go to the applications folder and go to "show info" for itunes app [select itunes and hit command+i] > here change the permissions to "read & write" for everything > now trash itunes and it should go off > now download an older version of itunes and install it [something lower than 10]... after this try the entire process and it should retain the persistant ID this time..... theres something with itunes 10 which reverts it to the previous default id... try this and see.

thanks will try and repost

so, had to downgrade, change user permissions on mountain lion to delete iTunes, then deleted iTunes folder, installed previous version of iTunes, changed the xml, then the hex edit (super easy btw), downloaded newest iTunes, works, done. thank you.

Im trying to still figure out how the hex edit works. I copied old itl file, pasted it in hex editor and clicked search but i get nothing. And once you do find it, how do you replace it? this is the only step im confused about. Thanks

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Hi, I don’t need to sync my iPhone with multiple computers, but I have a new laptop (PC) nad all I want is to be able to Sync my iPhone 4 and iPod Touch with my new laptop and stop syncing with the old one. Is this possible?

Same as me, I tried this - without success... has it been disabled in iTunes 10?

i dont think this works for itunes 10 . . . cause it still prompts me to erase & sync , & when i check back into the files, the old code reappears. i have done this successfully on other computers, i dont know whats causing this problem now, especially since none of the files are read only.

I've installed iTunes on my new computer and then copied the iTunes folder from my old computer and replaced that folder on my new computer and it has worked two different times.

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This does not work in iTunes 10. HOWEVER, if you roll back to 9.2.1, it DOES work, then you can upgrade back to 10.

Nice one John Yoder -- if you roll back to 9.2.1, follow tutorial, then update to current iTunes, it works like a dream. Much thanks.

Yes! Uninstalled iTunes 10, installed 9.2.1, edited the files and then upgraded. Works fine!

Yes, sadly this no longer works in iTunes 10. On the "secondary" computer, i.e. the one where we change the ID manually, the ID gets reset to its original value by iTunes once any action (e.g. playing a song or, more importantly, plugging in a device) is performed. Interestingly if you just load iTunes and quit, the ID change does stick. So it seems iTunes is reading the ID from somewhere else. Perhaps from another settings/preference file? (Hopefully) Worst case is that this is now a hard-coded check and the ID is based on something we can't easily change (e.g. hardware ID/CPU serial number/MAC/etc or derivation from one of those). I'll keep checking back to see if someone's come up with a workaround! I'll keep playing with it too... It's really too bad since the new sync provided by Apple is only for purchases from their store, not any other files (which could be perfectly legal as well, such as CD imported MP3s).

i tried following this too and it didn't work. my main computer is a brand new mac mini and my secondary is a pc at work; both running itunes 10. all seemed to work(no immediate prompt to delete files when i clicked on 'manually manage music', but as soon as i tried to check 'sync apps' from the apps page i got the dreaded prompt about erasing/replacing data on the phone with what's in my pc's library. one additional item to point out, my pc is authorized for my itunes store account, if that matters. any help would be appreciated.

Followed instructions exactly, but the itunes on my work computer would not recognize the iPhone. I double checked Device settings in Itunes preferences to make sure "Prevent iphones from syncing automatically" was not checked - it wasn't. Perhaps this workaround won't work on the iPhone 4 and 10.1 itunes?

I got as far as opening the itl with hexedit but im stuck at the step that tells me to search for the old Library Persistent ID....it says search string not found. Someone please help =\

Has anyone gotten this to work on itunes 10? I want to be able to get sync podcasts from my home win7 pc in the am and sync podcasts from my work pc (XP) in the evening.

didn't work fro me either on itunes 10. hope someone can figure this out.

I tried the process for windows and it didn't work. I have itunes 10. does it matter?

Good job on the guide. i had no idea what i was doing and i successfully transferred all my shit to my new computer. the one thing ill add was i wasnt even prompted to erase all my data, it just started backing up automatically, which was great. thanks for the great guide!

Hi, First of all thanks to all the guys doing the effort to look into these matters what Apple should do in the first place. I've tried this tutorial a couple of times and it does not work for me. Primary system is an iMac (intel), secondary a PC (Windows XP), iPhone4 32GB. Anybody knows a work around ?

Any reason you can't copy and paste the whole "itunes" folder from the other computer into My Music and then use the hex editor to change "itl" file.

unfortunately, there was a sad after story: first it looked, as if it worked. but when I tried to copy a ringtone on my phone, iTunes cleared all songs and playlists from the phone :-( I'm not sure if I dragged the Ringtone onto the phone or if I ticked "synchronize with ringtones", but nonetheless, this happened. And iTunes did not ask a single question, to ERASE ALL MY MUSIC from the phone or not, really annoying, Apple and its software.

Thank you iClarified! This worked!

it did not work at all and erased all of my apps

Great! Thanks a lot! Works perfectly! Was a real pain to find. Unbelievable, these apple/iTunes-mysteries...

Thank you for your post. I recently purchased iPhone4. I followed your direction carefully. However, it failed to work. Tried again and again, but I still get that massage box says erase data. Please help.... Thank you for your help.

Oh YES!!! You are awesome! This is what iTunes should be doing natively. Letting you drag and drop songs from iTunes to your phone and vice versa. I have iTunes at work and purchased a song without thinking about it, but couldn't get the song to my iPhone 4 because I sync up my music library on my home PC iTunes. Now, I can sync up music in both places, and freely buy songs (to Apple's benefits) from either computer. Thanks!

Finally got the nerve to try it. When I hook my ipod to my new computer I get the following message " Are you sure you want to sync podcast All existing podcast .....on ipod will be replaced with pocast from itunes library. Since this is my new computer I don't have anything in my library. Do I need to load everything on my new computer, music, podcast.....before this will work? Using iTunes 9.2.1.5

Had to copy and paste my iTunes library to my new computer and then it worked. Might have been another way but....oh well it worked great.

I tried the process and itunes 10 still asks me to erase the data.

I had to use wordpad rather than notepad.. notepad didnt give correct persistent id.. wierd

Getting rid of my old desktop and needed to be able to sync iPhone / iPod to new laptop. This is a superb solution for my issue - found UltraEdit a better tool than HexEdit.

I searched and I searched and finally found this awesome solution !!! Totally rocks !!!!!!

This has been totally AWESOME THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

Thank you sooooooo much! Great Tutorial!!!

THANK YOU !!! This was the easiest and fastest. After all other suggestions and posts . THANK YOU :)