Syncing music only from my Windows iTunes library to my iPhone13

I am not aware that there has ever been an option in iTunes to stop the artwork being added to a device during Sync. The only method would be to remove the artwork from the song.

Regarding the lyrics, I'm not aware how many songs ever have the lyrics embedded in them by default. It's certainly not the case with music purchased from somewhere like Amazon. The only songs that I have with lyrics are when I've added them myself.

But more to the point, the artwork for any song is probably only about 100KB, whereas a three minute song with a Bit Rate of 128Kbps is roughly 2,700KB. But the iTunes store now sells music with a Bit Rate of 256KB (and Amazon is higher still) and a three minute song in my library (at 256Kbps) is 6,675KB. In other words, the artwork takes up a very small amount of space compared to the music itself and if getting rid of it actually saved a measurable amount of space you would have to get rid of the artwork from 67 songs just to be able to add one song (at the lower Bit Rate that neither Amazon or iTunes use).

My next test might not stand up to precise scientific scrutiny, but I added the lyrics from a song in my library to a document and it caused the size of the document to increase by just 4KB. So I'm not convinced that removing either artwork or lyrics will help you with your storage issue (but there is something you can do*).

The Sync Music only option that you mention refers to not synchronising videos or voice memos. Plus, there are separate options for synchronising Podcasts, pictures and Audiobooks. It is not, and has never to my knowledge been, about not putting artwork or lyrics on a device.

So what can you do?

* Here is a suggestion (you do not have to do it):

Think of all your music and separate it into two or three types:

1. 1. 1. music that you want on your phone all the time
      2. music that you only want to listen to once in a while
      3. music that you want to hear only at a particular time of the year (Christmas songs for example)

It's possible (and easy) to create Smart Playlists and use them to automatically add and remove songs from the phone every time you Sync it with your iTunes Library. Let's consider the music in the second group above; music that once you've listened to it you don't want to hear again for (let's say) six months.

Create a Smart Playlist that excludes songs that have been played within the last 180 days (six months). At each Sync the songs in that list that have been played are removed from your phone, leaving space for other songs that have now not been played for the six months we've set up. Each time you Sync, the Playlist is refreshed and some songs are removed and others put back. This way we can manage a large music library on a device that can't take it all.

It's how I manage my iPod Touch, which simply doesn't have the capacity for all my music.

If the idea interests you, you can create and test the playlist in your library and once you get it working in a way that suits you, add it to the phone. You do not have to play any of those songs by using the Playlist. You can play them as you would normally: by album , by artist, or genre. The Playlist is simply the method to control the songs being added or removed.

If you require assistance in setting up this Playlist, please ask.

Oh, and by the way, there is an option in iTunes to convert higher rate songs (the 256Kbps and above) to 128Kbps when they are added to your phone. In other words, a reduced quality version of the song is put on the phone, reducing the amount of space taken up and thereby allowing more music to be put on the phone, while leaving the higher Bit Rate version in your iTunes Library.

Notice that I have not suggested that you try this particular option.

I think you have a misconception or two.

If a Sync has started it means that iTunes has calculated that there is enough space on the phone. If there wasn't, it would post a message telling you that there isn't enough space and it would not proceed any further.

If you stop a Sync part-way through, then you are now fighting iTunes by stopping it from doing what you asked it to do. That will end in tears.

The “data” that you see on the device is not the lyrics. Any lyrics in a song are (like the artwork), contained in the song's file. I've just conducted a test on your behalf. I added artwork and lyrics to a song that had neither:

• • adding artwork to the song added and additional 0.1MB to the size of the file according to iTunes and 0.08MB according to Windows Explorer (so iTunes rounded up the figure)
  • adding lyrics to that made no difference to the size according to iTunes, but interestingly, reduced the file size by 0.01MB (I assume that this is a rounding error)

You might think that the results prove your point (that the lyrics are kept separately on the phone, as data), but they do not. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I do have many years experience of iTunes and digital music and I know how this works:

• • if you have music in a folder that also contains the artwork (purchases from Bandcamp for example), that is an extra. It is not the artwork that is used by iTunes
  • if you move a song from one computer to another, the artwork and the lyrics will still be “with the song”, even though you did not move the artwork in the folder, or any text
  • perhaps further evidence of this is that a .wav file cannot have artwork in the file. So if one moves a .wav file to another computer, any artwork that was displayed in iTunes will not be present on the other computer. In the past, when one could “add” artwork to a .wav file, what actually happened is that iTunes simply remembered which picture you had told it to use. But since that information was held by iTunes and the artwork was not in the file, the artwork could not travel with the file

As an aside, I would be surprised if it is possible to add 500GB of music to any memory device that has 512GB capacity. Memory capacity is calculated in an odd way, which results in the actual memory available being less than the 512GB advertised figure. This is common across the computer industry and is not an Apple thing. This in turn brings me onto the data that you mentioned:

• • your phone has to keep note of several things: where each file is located and how many times a song has been played and when. It's stuff like that which is the “data” that you're concerned about
  • data is also information used in apps on your phone, either for the app's use or information that you are collecting

I believe the solution to your issue is to use Sync selected playlists, artists, albums and genres and that some of those Playlists should be the ones I have suggested to you. I can guide you through the process of managing this, but only if you are prepared to give it a go.

You're welcome.

For the future, if or when you do run into the problem of not enough storage space on your device, bear in mind my suggestion about synchronising by playlists. It's how I've been managing my iPod, which doesn't have enough room for all my music.

I actually have additional playlists, which add and remove other songs, but for a different length of time. I even keep a Recently Played playlist on my iPod, which keeps songs on it that I keep playing (there aren't many), even though they've dropped out of my main playlist.