Without iTunes, you need to use Finder to sync or update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a Mac. That wouldn’t be a problem if Finder let you track the progress of those actions as easily as iTunes used to do, but it doesn’t.
With Finder, you get a vague loading circle in the sidebar. It often needs to fill up multiple times leaving you with little idea how long a sync or software update is going to take.
To track more details than that in macOS Catalina, you need to use Terminal.
When you used iTunes to sync or update Apple devices, you could track the progress of those actions from the status window at the top of the app.
This window showed a blue progress bar alongside information about the current process. It often displayed the total number of steps required as well.
iTunes gave loads of information to track syncing or update progress.
For software updates, the iTunes download manager showed how big the update was and how long it should take to finish downloading. This is the same window you used to track music or movie downloads.
In iTunes, click the download icon to follow your software updates.
None of this information is available in Finder!
Finder limits sync and update information to the sidebar
Finder doesn’t have a convenient status window to show your update or sync progress as iTunes did. Instead, Apple added a circular loading icon to the sidebar, which appears next to your device name.
This circle fills up as your device installs updates or syncs data.
That sounds useful, but the circle often needs to fill and refill multiple times. In iTunes, we could see the total number of steps required, but there’s no way of knowing that in Finder.
What’s more, while Finder is downloading new software updates, the sidebar only shows two spinning arrows. There’s no loading circle to tell you how much of the download has completed so you have no idea how long it will take.
Finder only shows spinning arrows while downloading software updates.
Sometimes Finder doesn’t even show the loading circle
There are still a few bugs in macOS Catalina. Sometimes, Finder’s loading circle doesn’t show up at all, so you get even less information to track the sync or software update in progress.
When this happens, you can usually follow your syncing progress from the TV or Music apps. But failing that, you need to relaunch Finder.
Track syncing information from the TV and Music apps
If you can’t see a loading circle in Finder, open the Music or TV app on your Mac instead. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from the sidebar in these apps to see if any syncing information is available.
The TV app shows an Activity window while syncing video content.
Check if your device is still syncing from its status bar
Without a loading circle, it’s difficult to know if your device is still syncing or not. Fortunately, two spinning arrows appear in the status bar of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch whenever a sync is taking place.
Wait for this icon to disappear before you eject your device from the Mac.
Relaunch Finder to bring the loading circle back
If the loading circle has vanished from Finder, you can fix it by quitting and relaunching the app. You shouldn’t try this while a sync or software update is in progress because you might corrupt your device.
To relaunch Finder, press option+command+escape. Select Finder from the list of applications and click Relaunch.
Relaunch Finder from the Force Quit window.
Use Terminal to track sync or software update details
You can track more details about the progress of your device sync or software updates using Terminal.
There are a couple of different commands you can use to do this: one of them shows your software update download progress and the other lists every process taking place between Finder and your device.
We’ve explained them both below.
Track your download progress for software updates
Copy and paste the following command into Terminal to track the download progress of your iPhone software updates.
while true
do
clear
ls -lhrt ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates
sleep 20
done
This command shows how much of the software update your Mac has downloaded so far, shown in MB. If you know the total size of the update, you can work out how much more Finder needs to download.
Terminal updates the reading every 20 seconds. you can stop it by pressing control+C.
View a live stream of syncing and other processes on your device
The AMPDevicesAgent on your Mac handles communication between Finder and your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
You can use the following Terminal command from a StackExchange user to print active activity from the AMPDevicesAgent. This lets you see what’s happening with your device at any given moment.
The data isn’t pretty, and there’s a lot of it. But if you take the time to sift through each line, there are some useful nuggets of information to find.
This includes the total number of videos, photos, or songs on your device, which might imply how close to completion your sync is.
Your mileage may vary with how useful this command is.
Revert your Mac to High Sierra to keep using iTunes
None of these solutions are particularly breathtaking. If you’re still unsatisfied with Finder’s ability to track the progress of syncing and software updates for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, we suggest you leave official feedback for Apple.
If enough people leave feedback about this missing feature, Apple might add it to the next update.
Dan writes tutorials and troubleshooting guides to help people make the most of their technology. Before becoming a writer, he earned a BSc in Sound Technology, supervised repairs at an Apple Store, and even taught English in China.
I’m by far an apple developer or engineer, but after reading this article it gave me some understanding in some areas.
I know this is a long shot, but a coworker somehow is hacking my phone, iPod, and iTunes download showed an iTunes remote with apps being used that indicate spyware / stalkerware.
Master resets do nothing and he has my synced to other phones that other coworkers are using.
Are these company devices or are these your personal devices?
If the company’s, are they managed by the company using user profiles (Mobile Device Management MDM)? You can check for this Mobile Device Management (MDM) profiles in Settings > General > Profiles.
Also, are the Apple ID’s Managed Apple IDs or your own Apple ID that you manage? Managed Apple IDs are unique to your company and separate from Apple IDs that you can create for yourself. Unlike with personal Apple IDs, IT administrators manage the services that your Managed Apple ID can access.
If this co-worker is not an official system manager of your devices and these are not company-owned or managed devices, then is there a reason you and your co-workers have not reported this suspected behavior?
What might help, if these are not company devices is to run a program called Malwarebytes on your devices (Mac, iDevices, Android, and Windows are supported.) There are free and paid versions as well as trial periods for robust options.
I’ll just add that if you want to see a faster refresh rate from the first Terminal command, simply change the “sleep” to 1 instead of 20. That way Terminal updates every single second.
a says
This is a pretty smart tip — thanks.
rahaf says
THANK U VERY HELPFUL
Kimberly says
I’m by far an apple developer or engineer, but after reading this article it gave me some understanding in some areas.
I know this is a long shot, but a coworker somehow is hacking my phone, iPod, and iTunes download showed an iTunes remote with apps being used that indicate spyware / stalkerware.
Master resets do nothing and he has my synced to other phones that other coworkers are using.
Any help on what I can do?
Elizabeth Jones says
Hi Kim,
Are these company devices or are these your personal devices?
If the company’s, are they managed by the company using user profiles (Mobile Device Management MDM)? You can check for this Mobile Device Management (MDM) profiles in Settings > General > Profiles.
Also, are the Apple ID’s Managed Apple IDs or your own Apple ID that you manage? Managed Apple IDs are unique to your company and separate from Apple IDs that you can create for yourself. Unlike with personal Apple IDs, IT administrators manage the services that your Managed Apple ID can access.
If this co-worker is not an official system manager of your devices and these are not company-owned or managed devices, then is there a reason you and your co-workers have not reported this suspected behavior?
What might help, if these are not company devices is to run a program called Malwarebytes on your devices (Mac, iDevices, Android, and Windows are supported.) There are free and paid versions as well as trial periods for robust options.
jojo says
thank you so much , my phone is back to normal
Michael Afanasiev says
I’ll just add that if you want to see a faster refresh rate from the first Terminal command, simply change the “sleep” to 1 instead of 20. That way Terminal updates every single second.
Mt says
Great addition to a great tip – thanks lads.