Download: HTC Sync Manager

After taking possession of a new HTC Desire C and a spacious microSD card, we decided to add our music collection to the phone. Simply copying the music to the card with Windows Explorer didn't work. The solution is to use the HTC Sync Manager, which is also compatible with HTC One X, HTC One XL, HTC One XC, HTC One S, HTC One V, HTC EVO 4G LTE, HTC Droid Incredible 4G, HTC J, HTC Desire C, HTC Desire VC, and HTC Desire V.

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Once it has been installed, connect your phone and select the HTC Sync Manager option on your phone. Windows will install the correct drivers and the HTC Sync Manager should detect it automatically.

Give the device a name and select the storage to use. This will almost always be the SD card.

There is an option to automatically start syncing when the device is connected but the colours used make it a little hard to see if the option has been selected.

Click on Save and select the folders to sync with the device for the different media types. This does allow you to exclude photos from syncing options if you only want to transfer music.

The main use for this software will be copying music so it's a shame that the software is a little limited in letting you select music to include and exclude from your phone.

Most of us will select the My Music folder but that means it will try to synchronise everything in that folder to the phone. That presented us with a problem due to the 7GB of podcasts that iTunes had saved there. While iTunes can selectively copy podcasts to an iOS device, we couldn't find any way of excluding albums from the sync process. Our solution was to move the iTunes folder because we couldn't find a way to remove.

If you click on the settings icon for music on the Sync view it is possible to filter the music selections but only by selected playlists rather than albums.

MicroSD memory cards for phones are fairly inexpensive but they still need to have plenty of space left over for photos and videos.

Although the device connected to the computer with the HTC Sync Manager is more capable than the phone we were using with Nokia Suite, it's a shame that the same isn't true for this software. Nokia Suite let us decide exactly what music to copy and the same is also true for iTunes.

On a more positive front, it is possible to select options to synchronise content from the phone back on to the computer, which is vital for backing up photos and bookmarks.

So this is an essential download for importing your music collection to a device such as the HTC Desire C, but not as flexible as alternatives.