Q: Playlists and music are not syncing (can't add any music to my iPhone now)

Last night I connected both my iPhone and my iPad via cable to my PC with iTunes and tried to get them all synced and backed up. I began having issues with a playlist not syncing. I eventually gave up and went to bed, leaving them connected overnight, hoping maybe all they needed was time. This morning I found exactly what had happened to you, with a duplicate (though not exactly) "playlist1" added . No idea how that occurred, certainly nothing I did unless I was sleepwalking (which I don't do!).

This worked for me.

Had this same issue about 6 months ago on other versions of iTunes and iOS.

This doesn't work for me. Nice to know Apple thoroughly test new software. So annoying because all the music I had on my phone is kind of just stuffed in there and I can't seem to sort them into my playlist again by syncing to my laptop again.

Thanks for the info on this. Ive was wondering why i couldn't see any of my music or drag and drop music from my mac to my phone.

This release is another ******* nightmare from itunes. In what way you might ask? Well the notion of having my entire library available on my phone without taking data space is great, but......what about your high quality (ie. not mp3, but lossless) library that you spent years on? Apple music, icloud will take over your library and downgrade it to save server space from apples end and tags and art etc could be another nightmare to fix. It is unfortunate that there couldn't be a cloud copy of your library, downgraded bitrate if need be, for you phone and your original library stays the same for at home use. Also, why can't one add and delete songs from their computer from itunes library like I have always done? That option is now gone!! Total mess from the evil giant. Time to switch media players.

On your mac open iTunes and go to Account>Authorise This Computer... (as shown) and then and the information asked for.

This is how I used to manage things.

I’d have several smart playlists.

When syncing to phone, I’d select the ones that I want depending on space.

Sync would refresh the playlists, adding and removing content as needed.

Now, I can’t see a way where I can decide which playlists are syncing and what is/isn’t going onto my phone.

Right now, my phone is rammed to the rafters and I have no idea how to selectively remove and update. My phone should only ever have what I have ticked in playlists added to it. Right now that should be nothing as all my smart playlists have broken as they refer to other playlists within themselves.

How do I manage in the new structure?

I believe you have two choices but I have not personally experimented extensively yet with either.

First, iCloud Music Library is turn on or off from iTunes -> Preferences -> iCloud Music Library.  On the iPhone, it is Settings -> Music -> iCloud Music Library.  You want these two settings to match or the behavior is something that I can't understand.

If you pick to have iCloud Music Library off for both, then I believe things work like you are use to.  You can pick and choose on the Mac the content you want to sync to the phone.

If you pick to have iCloud Music Libray on for both, then you have to go to the iPhone, pick an album, pick the three dots, and then pick "Remove from My Music" I think will remove it from the iCloud but not from your Mac's real actual music library.  I would test this with a single album first.  Perhaps go to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Storage and see how much space Music is consuming, remove a few albums, and see if the space is changing.

On the Mac iTunes, if you pick Music on the Left, Playlists in the middle, and poke the three dots to the right of the Random symbol in the playlists banner, you get an interesting menu.  One item is Add To.  Poke it and you get a list of devices.  A previous person said you can pick which devices to sync the playlist to but I can't get that to do anything for me at all... but YMMV.

All this is clearly broken nine ways from Sunday.  They pushed out iTunes 12.2.1 yesterday but I can't tell any difference.

If you do any experimenting and discover any new things, please report back.

I have neither of those choices for iCloud Music Library on either my PC version of iTunes or on my iPhone. No mention of iCloud Music Library anywhere I see. Are you possibly referring to iTunes Match? I do not use that.

Just installed 12.2.1 on my PC, no difference I can see.

I have an email that shows this reply and I can get to it via your profile page but the thread does not show this reply.  I think Apple is crumbling... :-)

Does this page help you any: Check your Apple Music library settings - Apple Support

iCloud Music Library is not the same as iTunes Match.  I know you have a PC but I thought these screen shots may help.  One is when I'm logged out.  The other is when I'm logged in.

Logged In:

Logged Out:

Interesting. The dialog box I see is the one you show as occurring when logged out. But I am logged in according to the dropdown that appears when I click on the head icon at the top of the screen. Which makes sense, as I had to log in when I started the session.

I just played with it some more and it is still not managing the playlists properly. I added a song to the playlist I use on my phone, plugged in the phone, let it auto-sync and also told it to sync manually after a while, and the song would not appear on the phone. I was able to add it a second time, getting the duplicate message and told it to go ahead anyway, and it did appear on the phone after that (but only once), not duplicating anything).

BTW, I have not activated Apple Music on my account so anything associated with that should not be affecting this.

YYou're awesome, been searching for the button for an age!!! Why move it from the settings completely?! Such an odd move apple

Cannot we not sync apple music from our mac to our iPhone via cable? I have downloaded an album to play offline on my iMac and now want to transfer this album via playlist to the iPhone but a warning keeps coming up stating that as the song/album is part of a subscription it cannot be synced! Have I missed the point here? Surely we can transfer offline music from our iMac to our iPhone right? I understand about DRM but just thought as it was part of the apple eco-system it wouldn't matter.

Here's a suggestion, try signing out of iTunes and you should be able see the previous menu for MUSIC, afterwards just sign back in.

Great!  After trying everything else this one really helped me.  Although I did´t had to "manually manage music and videos"... I just synced and all the playlists were in my iPhone.  Thanks so much!