iPhone-to-Mac music sync is very slow, involving thousands of files needlessly copied

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iPhone-to-Mac music sync is very slow, involving thousands of files needlessly copied

Summary: iPhone-to-Mac music sync, via cable, is very slow, taking around 20 minutes even though I've generally only made one or two small changes. That's because, as I see in MacOS Finder, it involves thousands of files being needlessly copied -- as opposed to just the one or two new music files being copied over.

Finder screenshot from yesterday when I only added two new MP3 files, yet the sync involved 2,284 files being transferred:

Details:

issue occurs with iPhone 12 Pro and also my old iPhone 8 Plus.
issue occurs on ALL versions of MacOS (Big Sur, Catalina) since sync was moved to Finder.
only step 6 is slow. steps 1-5 process quickly.
official Apple cable is used.

Any ideas on how to fix this? It's frustrating that it's always so slow.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Jan 24, 2021 11:30 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

KMB_12

Community Specialist

Jan 26, 2021 6:48 PM in response to Steven'08

Hi Steven,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We understand that syncing your music from your Mac to your iPhone is taking longer than expected.

Does this happen with Automatic syncing or are you syncing your iPhone manually when this happens? You can disable this and change other options using the guidance from Change how syncing works on Mac.

Also, do you use Smart Playlists? If so, these playlists may be syncing each time due to changes. You can edit those as well. Check out Create, edit, and delete Smart Playlists in Music on Mac.

Cheers!

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Answer 2

Steven'08 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 27, 2021 5:03 AM in response to KMB_12

hi Kareng12

Automatic syncing is turned off.
Yes, I have 6 smart playlists with ~400 songs total.
Just now, I tried syncing with all my smart playlists deselected, and the result is that I'm still getting an unnecessary amount of files synced (see screenshot). My only change was adding one podcast plus removing the smart playlists, and for some reason the sync involved 2,180 songs 😭

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Answer 3

Jan 27, 2021 11:06 AM in response to Steven'08

Steven,

This may possibly be expected. When you sync your iPhone with your Mac, all selected content syncs. For instance, if you had songs on your iPhone that you no longer wanted, you would deselect them before syncing with your Mac. Then, they would be removed. The 'Remove automatically synced music from your iPhone or iPad' section of Sync music between your Mac and iPhone or iPad explains that a bit more.

If you have feedback about this, you can send it to Apple from Product Feedback - Apple.

Have a great day!

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Answer 4

Steven'08 Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 2, 2021 7:00 AM in response to MichelleT18

I appreciate another detailed response, but the issue persists. here's what I've tried:

removed all smart playlists
checked the "automatically sync when this iPhone is connected" box
synced with only a few music file changes
synced with zero music file changes
updated to iOS 14.4
updated to MacOS 11.2

the result of all of the above is no improvement. it's still the case that 2,000 to 3,000 music files sync for no good reason, wasting about 20 minutes.

sadly it seems that Finder sync is a lot worse than the old iTunes sync

ԅ[ * ༎ຶ _ ༎ຶ * ]┐

here's my current sync:

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Answer 5

ryane77

Community Specialist

Feb 2, 2021 11:25 AM in response to Steven'08

Steven,

In this case, it may be best to reach out to Apple Support for further assistance. You can reach out directly from Get Support.

Take care.

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iPhone-to-Mac music sync is very slow, involving thousands of files needlessly copied

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