How to change album cover on Apple Music

What worked for me was going into iTunes & requesting album artwork. Then, I back up all content on my iPhone phone. Afterwards, I reset/erased ALL content on my iPhone phone. Then I set-up/restored all content on my iPhone. It took about an hour, but it worked.

I did try removing all music & re-adding it before resorting to the above, but it didn’t work.

I deleted all the songs on my iPhone, and then did a complete sync of all the songs on my iTunes library on my MacBook Pro.

After that I checked only the playlists I wanted to sync, and synced again.

That seemed to fix it (although this probably won't work if you have more songs that can fit on your iPhone - although it might be possible to tweak what I did perhaps by selection more albums than what you want to sync?)

My problem started when I set up new iPhone 12 Mini. All the albums were a jumble and many under the same albumcover. I followed the routine mentioned by jtanerga in message above. I had to delete all music in settings > music > downloaded music > edit > delete all. After reboot and resync, choose albums and resync again. I followed this routine 3 times before all was right again. Thanks, jtannerga! I think it was the deletion in Music and reboots which did the trick.

You've probably fixed it by now but I had a similar situation: I got an iPhone 12 Pro yesterday and did the setup side by side with my iPhone 7 and it was perfect – all my music transferred perfectly. Today I synced the phone up to iTunes to

update a couple of the artists that were listed as “Various Artists” that I wanted as a single artist. The sync process duplicated all of my music so I had two of every song. To fix this issue I deleted ALL the songs from the phone and synced the phone’s “Music” with iTunes and it brought all the music back in but a lot of the albums had the wrong cover.

I researched this online and found this site. A few people here have mentioned manually deleting the albums with the wrong covers then re-syncing. I had a lot of them but I took the time to delete them all one-by-one from the phone then I re-synced with iTunes and everything is fine now. Thanks to those who recommended this fix.

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 just purchased the iPhone 12 Max Pro and when I sync all my downloaded CD,'s on iTunes every album cover was mixed up.

To fix: I went to iTunes un-sync all all of the music, and then disconnected. On the phone I deleted the iTunes music app, and then reinstalled it. I went back to iTunes, and click sync music: Check Select Playlist, artist, albums, and genres. I check a couple artist at first just to see if it work then I did more, all individually. Everything sync fined !

This worked for me. Thanks bestofboston9. It’s a little tedious but if I delete album on my phone with wrong artwork and/or dupes, then sync with my iTunes library on my computer, the correct artwork shows up again and the duplicates are gone.

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? :)

Hi Dianne,

i think iTunes needs to be “told” what you have removed manually.

With the phone plugged in, go to the sync page where you can see tick boxes of playlists, albums, songs etc.

I would guess that your talks are still selected in iTunes. Deselect them and click APPLY. This should mean the phone and computer are now back in sync.

Then reselect the talks you and APPLY.

GENERAL INFO:

When you have not made any changes to the tick boxes, it says SYNC, because you may have added songs to a ticked playlist, as an example.

When you tick or untick a box, it changes to APPLY.

if this does not work, remove ALL music via iTunes. Then delete any leftovers in:

Settings>>General>>iPhone Storage>>Music

then re add everything you want with iTunes. Good luck!☺️

I had this problem with downloaded music only (I'm not an Apple Music subscriber). All songs were duplicated and the artwork on all duplicates was mixed up.

I connected to the iTunes library on my Mac and deselected 'entire music library'. I then made sure NO songs were ticked under 'selected artists, albums, genres and playlists' and clicked 'Apply'

I then clicked 'Sync'

Itunes library on my iPhone 12 went to half the size and all the artwork appears OK.

So appears to be a sync issue. What happens next time i sync with my Mac? Presumably all the duplicates appear again? Pretty poor from Apple....

I managed to fix my issue. I manually deleted all my music off my iPhone and let iTunes re sync it. Now everything is back to normal

I followed advice from above, 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.

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.

Yes, using the tick box system is the best, once you get used to it.

You can add a song to the playlist on your laptop, then just SYNC to update the playlist. The new track should be added to your phone AND into the playlist.

I suggest removing all music from your phone. Check that your Music in Settings >> General >> iPhone Storage >> Music is zero. If not you should be able to delete the data on that page. But only if your music has been deleted. It seems some music gets left there by mistake.

Then create your playlists on your laptop and then connect the phone to iTunes, tick the playlists (adding a playlist will automatically upload the needed songs to your phone) and albums etc. and APPLY to make the changes.

That should do it! :)

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.