How do I move digital music files from my MacBook's library to my iPhone?

Question

Level 1

34 points

How do I move digital music files from my MacBook's library to my iPhone?

I am trying to find a way to move the digital music files in my MacBook's music library to my iPhone. I have a library of ~12,000 songs. I am a subscriber to Apple Music, but the 12,000 digital music files in my library are mostly ripped from CDs and purchased as downloads from the iTunes store. I want each and every one of those files to also exist in my phone.

Currently, when I sync my iPhone to my MacBook — with sync "entire music library" enabled — the process does not result in files being copied over. Rather, the iPhone music library becomes populated with placeholders for the song files in my MacBook's library that begin streaming when I instruct the phone to play the song. This is insufficient to my needs, which require access to the songs on my iPhone when I don't have cell service or WiFi. In other words, I have 12,000 songs on my laptop, and I want to be able to listen to all 12,000 songs on my iPhone when I'm riding the subway or in a train tunnel or jogging where there's no cell service.

It appears that I can sync my library, cause 12,000 placeholders for the digital files to appear in the iPhone's library, and then individually download each of the 12,000 songs. That is not an optimal solution.

I have tried using the Music app to drag the files to the iPhone. I selected all 12,000 songs in the "songss" view of the Music library and dragged them to the iPhone under "devices" in the sidebar of the Music app. That's about 66 gigs of songs. The iPhone has 100 gigs of free space. But for some reason, the computer only decided to transfer 2,300 digital files. The remainder of the songs were in the library as placeholders that had to either be manually downloaded or streamed.

I do not want to use the option to sync libraries across devices using iCloud, because I don't want to pay for iCloud storage and I don't want to stream the songs that I own--I want the digital files that I own to exist and be playable natively on my digital devices.

How do I move the files from my laptop to my phone? I have an iPhone 12 and a 2018 MacBook 15" running Big Sur 11.0.1.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Jul 1, 2021 6:16 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

turingtest2

Level 10

272,725 points

Jul 2, 2021 5:40 AM in response to John Cook6

See Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod using your computer - Apple Support for general advice on syncing. Typically with an Apple Music subscription you would enable Sync Library (AKA iCloud Music Library) in both computer and device, allowing all content to sync via the cloud. You could then download all the content that you want on the phone for offline use using, for example, the options to download particular playlists. This might be inefficient for 12,000 tracks. You could try the following:

Settings > Music > Sync Library > Off (to turn off cloud syncing)

Settings > Your Name (Apple ID) > Media & Purchases > Sign Out (prevents your purchases showing in the cloud)

Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Music > swipe left on All Songs > Tap Delete (remove all existing music)

Then sync with your library to add all your non-Apple Music content to the device.

Once done sign back into the store and enable Sync Library (merge rather than replace) to add in any Apple Music content which you will need to download. You can make a smart playlist in Music that shows cloud content (Location is not on this computer) that should sync to the iPhone, and can then be used to download whatever remains in the cloud.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

John Cook6 Author

Level 1

34 points

Jul 2, 2021 8:32 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks. I don't want to use the iCloud Music Library option because what I'm trying to accomplish is the transfer of the files on my laptop over to my phone, and my understanding is that the iCloud Music Library option simply registers the metadata for the song in the laptop library and makes a guess at what song it is and offers a download of a different digital file that it believes to be identical — but may not be identical — to the one on the laptop.

I will try logging out of all of my accounts and syncing the phone to the laptop in isolation and see if that works. Thanks.

Reply

Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

272,725 points

Jul 2, 2021 12:15 PM in response to John Cook6

It is some time since I did it but I think you can turn on the option to Sync Library on your phone and you should get an option to merge or replace. If you use merge everything already on the phone should stay there. Turning on sync library is, I think, the only way that you'll be able to add Apple Music content to the device. This cannot be synced from the library.

tt2

Reply

Answer 4

John Cook6 Author

Level 1

34 points

Jul 2, 2021 9:12 AM in response to turingtest2

It worked! Thank you. Going forward should I sync my Music library or will that risk erasing the files on the phone and undoing everything?

Reply

How do I move digital music files from my MacBook's library to my iPhone?

Similar questions