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How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

By Adam on September 13, 2009 0 Comments


First of all, hello MintyWhite reader. I’m excited to be working with Rich & the MintyWhite team! I’m taking on the task of keeping you updated on how the iPhone and Windows can play together nicely.

I’m an iPhone junky. I’ll admit it. I love the thing. I love it as a productivity app, as a digital voice recorder, as a clock to quickly check what time it is on the other side of the world where some of my family lives, as a quick & easy email client. I could go on and on.

In the coming months I’ll talk about some of my favorite features on the phone, how to use it with Windows, & show you some of the ways that I’ve taken advantage of its power and portability.

Today, I’m going to talk about a web-app-meets-iPhone-app that has saved me enough times in the last few months at work that I would recommend this to anybody. The best part about it is that it’s free! It’s called SugarSync, & it does 3 awesome things at once: (1) It backs up your files in the cloud, (2) It syncs your files among all your computers so that you never have to ask, “Which computer was I working on that again?”, & (3) It syncs to your iPhone!!

#3 comes in super-handy, because among other things, you can email files from your iPhone. The person you send the files to needs to register for a free account, which takes a second & is a bit annoying. But if you’re in a pinch and need to get a file to a co-worker or friend, this feature is amazing & the small inconvenience they have to go through of signing up for an account isn’t really that bad.

Other cool things you can do with the SugarSync iPhone app are stream music from your home computer, see all the pictures that you’ve downloaded, & a few other cool things that I’ll get into.

Enough of that, let’s dive in. (If you’re pretty tech-savvy, you might want to skip the tutorial & just grab SugarSync’s free 2GB version at sugarsync.com & grab the free iPhone app by searching for “sugarsync” in the app store). If you prefer going step-by-step, let’s get going!

To setup SugarSync on your PC & then on your iPhone, do the following:

  1. Goto SugarSync.com
  2. Setup a free SugarSync account online

    step1 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

  3. Note: The free version is hidden a bit. Look at the bottom, left-hand corner to find it.

    step2 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

  4. Download and install SugarSync using all the defaults, then restart your computerstep3 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync
  5. Activate SugarSync by checking your email & clicking the activate linkstep6 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync
  6. Head over to the app store. Search for, then install SugarSync on the iPhone

    step8 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

  7. After logging in to SugarSync on the iPhone, you’ll be asked if you’d like to play some “games.” These games aren’t going to win any awards for their sweet graphics, but I’d go through each of them to familiarize yourself with how SugarSync on the iPhone works.step13 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync
  8. Time to make a decision. If you plan to stay with the free version, you’re basically done & I recommend using the “Magic Briefcase” feature so that you can manually keep track of and sync up only your most important files. For more on the “Magic Briefcase,” see this tutorial. If you’re ok with spending a few dollars a month & want to back up and sync more than just your most crucial files, you’ll want to sync entire folders. I recommend syncing at least your “My Documents” folder, as 90% of what you work on will be kept there.
  9. If you are going to use more than the “Magic Briefcase,” Launch SugarSync on the PC. You’ll see the screen below. Click the button on the top left that says, “Manage Sync Folders.”
    Note: The screenshot below looks differently from the one you’ll see. I’ve been using SugarSync for a while now, & have setup three different computers. Your screen will be a lot less busy.

    step14 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

  10. Click on the folders you’d like to sync & backup
    step16 How to Sync Documents Seamlessly from PC to iPhone with SugarSync

That’s it for this tutorial. I hope you’ve enjoyed it & also taken some value from it. If you use SugarSync in a different way or have tried another iPhone-Windows-documents sync solution that you like better, sound off in the comments.

P.S. If you have suggestions for iPhone-on-a-Windows-machine tutorials or want to see certain apps reviewed, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email at . Your feedback & suggestions are super important for me to better give you what you want. Thanks for reading!



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