Sync Nokia Phones with iTunes music and iPhoto on Mac OS X

After having been able to sync my Contacts with my Mac notebook using iSync, I was surprised that I could actually also sync the music on my Symbian based Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic mobile phone with my iTunes music library in Mac OSX. Being a long time Linux user, I had always find it easy to sync my phone’s music files with Ubuntu’s Rhythmbox. It’s was just a matter of being able to mount my Nokia mobile phone as a USB storage device in Ubuntu.

It turns out that on Mac OSX, I can easily sync my iTunes music library with my Nokia mobile phone by just installing a free software that is provided by Nokia. The Nokia Multimedia Transfer (NMT) not only allows Nokia mobile phones to sync with the iTunes music library but also the iPhoto library on Mac OSX.

1. First, you need to check if your Symbian based Nokia mobile phone is supported by the Nokia Multimedia Transfer software for Mac OSX.
2. If your Nokia phone is supported, download the Nokia Multimedia Transfer software like you would any ordinary Mac OSX software. (The link is for Mac OSX Leopard. There is also a version for Mac OSX Tiger from Nokia but as of this writing, no version for Mac OSX Snow Leopard is available.)
3. After installing NMT, connect your Nokia mobile phone via USB or via bluetooth. If this is the first time you’re syncing your mobile phone, I suggest using a USB cable because data transfer rates are faster. Make sure that you connect using PC Suite mode.
4. The Nokia Multimedia Transfer software should be able to detect your connected phone automatically. Once connected, configure NMT on how you’d want to sync your iTunes music and iPhoto picture libraries. Other NMT features include automatic conversion of music files and automatic scaling of photo images when they are transferred to your Nokia phone.
5. After configuring, you can now start syncing iTunes and iPhoto with your Nokia phone by click on “Start Transfer”.

One other feature that’s available on NMT depending on the model of your Nokia mobile phone is syncing Safari bookmarks with bookmarks on your Symbian mobile phone.

Once you’re done with the initial syncing, you should be able to manage your mobile phone’s music, photos and bookmarks by just maintaining them on your Mac OSX computer. Any changes you make on your Mac can easily be synced with your Nokia mobile phone. And all that is free by using the Nokia Multimedia Transfer software for Mac OSX.