How to change album cover on Apple Music

Hey dscottr,

Were you able to update to iOS 14.0.1 and test the issue? If not follow the steps in this article to update: Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Also, try again to sync your iPhone with your computer: Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod using your computer.

For more help with this, please contact Apple Support: Get Support.

Have a good day.

Okay, in case it helps, this did the trick for me:

1. In iTunes, I unchecked the music sync, and then synced the phone.
2. Confirmed there were no more playlists on the iPhone.
3. Checked the lists of SONGS -- yep, they were still there.
4. On the iPhone went to settings >> iPhone storage and deleted all the songs and playlists.
5. Back in iTunes, did another sync (making sure that the "sync music" was UNCHECKED)
6. Checked the phone -- no songs, no playlists.
7. In iTunes, checked a few TEST playlists on to sync to the phone.
8. Synced the phone.
9. Playlists were added AND they had the proper artwork
10. Satisfied, I checked all the playlists (meaning, I did not check "sync my whole library")
11. Clicked sync.

And then I waited...

And that did the trick. Like magic!

-

Rationale: I reasoned that for some bizarre reason, the iPhone was pulling images to build playlists from the songs, and so somewhere that process was garbled. The albums and songs had the proper images, but the playlists did not. So I figured "resetting" those relationships might work. So, I experimented by deleting all the songs and albums of a single playlist, and then reloading from scratch. My guess is that this "reset" the song >> album >> playlist image association.

My reasoning might have been wrong, but hey, I can't complain about the results -- 13,000 + songs all look perfectly lovely now with all their correct images, and I did not have to reload images from any source.

Same issue here. I just got the iPhone 12 Pro and after syncing it there are a ton of albums showing the wrong artwork - including a lot of albums that were purchased directly from iTunes previously. Artwork is still displaying correctly within iTunes on my Mac, but it's a mess on my phone.

Just got a 12 Pro Max yesterday, transferred everything via quick start. Everything went great except my music. I first had duplicates of everything... and I mean everything! I went to my settings > music > downloaded music > edit > deleted all songs. I then resynced my phone & with itunes and that took care of the duplicates. Unfortunately it started another problem... it was showing the same album cover for multiple albums. So, I did the same thing again: settings > music > downloaded music > edit > deleted all songs. This time, I rebooted my phone & resynched with itunes with the "sync music" option unchecked. Then went back & selected that sync music option again & chose the albums I wanted. Re-synched & everything is correct again. Hope this helps some of you with the same problems that I had.

Hi dscottr,

Having the album artwork match the album is important. Does the artwork appear correct if the iOS device is connected to iTunes? Are you currently updated to the latest iOS on your device? If not, be sure to update using the steps here.

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Let us know if that helps. Have a good day.

Hi Brian,

Wow, 248GB of music? You must not take many photos! :)

I am not on Catalina yet, so it was news to me that the Music app has replaced iTunes.

I'm not a coder, but clearly the iTunes/Music database has got corrupted when we see the wrong artworks. There isn't a "rebuild database" option on the iPhone. So the only option is to clear the database - by either deleting all music or erasing the phone.

Your post got me interested in how things work on Catalina and Big Sur. Apparently you can sync over wifi, which should be much quicker than over a USB cable:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210611

But you will still have to delete all your music. I think it's unavoidable if you want to fix the problem.

And then make sure it's empty in Settings >> General >> iPhone Storage >> Music

You should be able to delete "left over database" from there.

Music app must be ZERO - before you start uploading again.

And over wifi should be quick if you put your phone next to the router.

Does that help? :)

This appears to have worked for me ...

First make sure your music is backed up somewhere besides your phone. For me, my MacBook Pro is one such place. So, with a backup in hand, do this on the iPhone 12:

• Go to Settings/General/iPhone Storage/Music
• Swipe left on "All Songs"
• Press Delete

Then

• Connect the phone with MacBook Pro via USB/Lighting
• Ignore the MacOS message that a software upgrade is required to connect the iPhone.
• Select iPhone in Finder
• Select the Music tab and press Sync

I checked the problem covers that I had noticed before, and all were correct. I have about 85Gigs of music, so I have not checked exhaustively. I will report back if anything goes amiss or otherwise pops up on my radar.

A word of skepticism: This is the third time in the two weeks I have had the phone (iPhone 12PM) that I synced music with the MacBookPro. Granted, iOS has been updated during that time, but updates not withstanding, I have no idea why this sync would work and earlier syncs would not. ¿Go figure?

I had this problem.

1. Create playlists with all the music you want on your device (I do mine by artist or genre)
2. Click on your device as if you are going to sync it
3. Click music
4. Uncheck the box that says "sync music"
5. Sync your phone
6. Click the box that says "sync music"
7. Check off all the albums, songs and/or playlists you would like
8. Sync phone again

I have sorted this out now. This is what I did:

• remove all the music from my phone
• synchronised it with the computer and re-started it
• selected "sync selected albums, artist, songs, and playlists"
• chose the albums I wanted on the phone, and the corresponding artists
• synchronised the phone again. This time it showed the process of transferring all 1,500 or so songs
• re-started the phone again and checked that the album covers matched the albums
• changed the settings back to "manage music manually".

I'm not suggesting all of those steps were strictly necessary, but choosing both the albums and the artists seemed the key thing that made it work.

I followed advice from below, thank you so much. But - I had to go into settings>>music>>show all purchases --- and turned it off. Then, it worked like a charm.

Edward_Martin_III

User level:

Level 1

(9 points)

Nov 30, 2020 8:46 AM in response to Edward_Martin_III

Okay, in case it helps, this did the trick for me:

1. In iTunes, I unchecked the music sync, and then synced the phone.
2. Confirmed there were no more playlists on the iPhone.
3. Checked the lists of SONGS -- yep, they were still there.
4. On the iPhone went to settings >> iPhone storage and deleted all the songs and playlists.
5. Back in iTunes, did another sync (making sure that the "sync music" was UNCHECKED)
6. Checked the phone -- no songs, no playlists.
7. In iTunes, checked a few TEST playlists on to sync to the phone.
8. Synced the phone.
9. Playlists were added AND they had the proper artwork
10. Satisfied, I checked all the playlists (meaning, I did not check "sync my whole library")
11. Clicked sync.

And then I waited...

And that did the trick. Like magic!

-

Rationale: I reasoned that for some bizarre reason, the iPhone was pulling images to build playlists from the songs, and so somewhere that process was garbled. The albums and songs had the proper images, but the playlists did not. So I figured "resetting" those relationships might work. So, I experimented by deleting all the songs and albums of a single playlist, and then reloading from scratch. My guess is that this "reset" the song >> album >> playlist image association.

My reasoning might have been wrong, but hey, I can't complain about the results -- 13,000 + songs all look perfectly lovely now with all their correct images, and I did not have to reload images from any source.

I followed a previous post and it worked for me. :)

1. Connect to iTunes and uncheck ALL your albums and playlists etc. Then press apply. So according to iTunes, there should be no music on your phone.
2. Go to Settings >> General >> iPhone Storage >> click on Photos. Then you should see some Photos storage, despite unchecking all music. You should be able to delete this here.
3. Connect to iTune and recheck the music you want and APPLY. Hopefully that should fix it! :)

I'm confused. HERE:

1. On the iPhone went to settings >> iPhone storage and deleted all the songs and playlists.

Did you mean to say that you went settings >> iCLOUD storage? I cannot find anything under SETTINGS>MY ACCOUNT> that says "iPhone storage". And, in iCloud settings, there is no option to "deleted all the songs and playlists."

So, I'm lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Edward_Martin_III

I followed your instructions and it mostly corresponded. The only thing was the music never deleted from my phone, even though, I:

1. Unchecked Sync Music in iTunes and resynced my iPhone
2. Deleted all songs and playlists in Settings -> storage on my iPhone
3. Deleted the Apple Music app and reinstalled it

No matter what I did, the music and albums were still there but then I noticed something... the album covers... they were right! I clicked on the Sync Music checkbox again in iTunes and it completed the process with the album cover art still correct. Also, somewhere along the way a bunch of music got deleted from my iPhone that got restored.

Thank you! This was so annoying and the other post on this didn't fix the problem.

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't see any of the transferred music. No tracks. No albums. No playlists. However, when the phone is unplugged, they're there. Sync-ing the phone only effects the more recent additions (since I made transfer from X-12pro). There's no way to effect the music that transferred because it's simply not represented in iTunes. See below: 19 songs recognized in iTunes, yet, 99.1Gb of audio. PLUS mismatched album covers for all new music. Maddening.