Sheeisback,

Congrats on the new machine. Do you live near an Apple Store? They offer free classes on how to use your mac and can answer these questions with your phone and machine. I use iCloud because it allows me to access all my content from any one of my devices. It also backs up my mac in the event if a failure. iTunes will load when you plug in your phone and you can configure what needs to be synchronized.

I second going to an Apple Store. Make an appt. at the Genius Bar if there's one near you.

Also, the Geek Squad at Best Buy is a good resource for stuff like this.

Congrats on your new Mac!

I have a mac and iphone 6, but don't really use the technology of either much. I do have icloud just for back up. When I plug in my phone, it shows me all the new photos and lets me choose which to download to my computer and then either erase from the phone or leave them on it. I have only gone to the cloud a few times to find an old email that i could not find on my computer. I don't organize anything, as I don't really need them organized. I just like having them someplace if I want to look at them.

I know, I'm no help! Just wanted to say it all kinda works without much savvy. The one thing that makes me crazy is my calendar won't synch between the computer and phone and I can't seem to make it work.

I'm not 100% sure you can sync an iphone 4 with the current macs, since you may need a version of iOS (the phone operating system) too new for that phone.

Just plug it in and you'll find out. If it works, you just go to itunes and you can choose which of your music/photos to keep or transfer back to the mac. With older devices, itunes may not open automatically when you connect the phone. After you hear the beep that tells you the mac recognizes the phone, just launch itunes and see if it shows up.

On the apple website, this is the link to the free one hour workshops to learn about different functions of the mac and iPhone.

I personally don't recommend Geek Squad. I find them mainly a rip off and they have been caught damaging people's machines to upsell services.

Itunes will sync to IOS regardless of the version of the software. Some newer functionality will not be available.

Itunes will sync to IOS regardless of the version of the software.

Sorry, but while this should be true in theory it's not always true in fact, at least not without a lot of poking and prodding. I know this from much experience. If your phone is upgraded as far as it can go, which is iOS 7 (unless it's the 4S, in which case it's iOS 8), it should work fine.

Well the best way to tell if your phone will sync up, is to plug it in, make sure wifi is 'on', then go to iTunes in Settings and scroll down to Backup. It should give you the date of your last backup and all you have to do is select 'backup now', and your phone and Mac and any other apple devices that are paired should sync.

As suggested, you would really benefit by getting an appointment with the Genius bar at your local Apple store. DH and I have iPhones and iPads, then I got a MacBook Air last fall and it was a bit different. It was worth the time spent in getting to know it a little better. Congrats on the gift! I'm a fan of the cloud personally.

Youtube videos can teach you so much without leaving home (or your desk)

Shee I know the closest genius bar is a haul for you-- and unfortunately, it's probably the worst I've been to with regards to a wait. I think the staff is fine but since it's the only one between phila burbs and.. well, I don't even know.. Pittsburgh burbs, maybe? .. it gets VERY busy. When I went to one in a city, I was stunned by how fast and efficient it was.

You know, many hs and college students use macs-- maybe you have someone local who can give you a basic walkthrough?

Thank you for the links and suggestions. I will do some watching! Unfortunately there isn't an Apple store anywhere near me. I can understand not right where I live but there should be something closer than Philly. Funky, I can imagine it's quite packed! I haven't been on it at all today. Spent almost six hours last night trying to get completely organized on my other computer with all my files. Sadly, I'm not done yet. I had an incident a few years back where my computer crashed and I lost almost everything. I dumped what was still on my camera and managed to get some other files. I was going to half clean it up but once I started I got into do it right mode and I'll continue from here on out. The unorganized digital mess stresses me out actually so I might as well deal with it. I might as well start using iCloud too. Sounds like it's pretty simple and it's one more place my files would be stored.

sheeisback, I think that if you look for the app called image capture in your apps, you can then transfer your photos into the Mac from there. Plug your phone into the Mac with the USB, select it in the image capture app, if you Google 'how to move images from iPhone to iMac", numerous tutorials should come up. One thing I can tell you, being a Mac user for five years now, is you may never again have to worry about a crash and losing everything!!

Balego - I'll look into that, thanks! I have moved images before from my phone to my old computer, but is the app a way to get around any crazy syncing? I'm tired so I might be missing something!

Not losing anything would be wonderful. Why is it that there aren't all those issues with Apple? Why are there no viruses (I didn't think.), etc?

I agree with homepro01 regarding Geek Squad. Years ago Best Buy had a really good computer repair department. However, with the establishment of the Geek Squad, all of their good repairmen were left without a job at Best Geek Squad employees are barely knowledgeable. Don't take a good computer to them. Don't even take a bad computer to them.

Sheeisback, Apple does occasionally have a virus; but few and far between. My granddaughters have had Apple laptops and iPhones for years and have never had a virus. I finally just got a MacBook Pro laptop. The main reason is the practically virus-free aspect. I have lost everything on Window computers three times due to viruses and decided No More. So, I am learning the Apple, too.

I am also keeping my Windows 10 desktop, but will put all of my important stuff on the Apple. Also plan on purchasing an external drive for the Apple to put items on. That way if there is a virus and the external drive is not connected, material will not be lost. I do have an external drive for my desktop, but when this last virus hit, it was connected via USB, so the virus hit the external drive, too. Learned a valuable lesson.

Good luck with your new computer. Here is a link with a forum concerning the Mac OS:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/

Thought I had another good link, but can't locate it right now.

Apple has tech support available online, through chat, & by phone. I've used all 3. Have you gone to Apple.com yet? You can find tutorials & answers to many, many questions there.

https://support.apple.com/

I don't back up my stuff to iCloud on purpose, tho I believe podcasts & other iTunes store downloads get automatically backed up. I've heard & read some disturbing stories of things being 'lost' which makes me wary of it.

That said, how many gigabytes of storage do you have on your new Mac? I have about 500 & that easily stores all my photos, music, graphics w/ plenty of space to spare. There are also slots for adding even more memory, if I so choose.

HTH