Music Playlist order on iPhone different than MacBook Pro

It is just a shame that Apple is unable (or unwilling) to implement song sorting functionality in the App like e.g. Spotify does. I can't believe I have to use iTunes on my PC/Mac every time I add new title to sort them in my playlist again.

Thank you, José440, this is the solution. Puuuh, that was finally time! (Shame on Apple to not give us a much simpler solution. Not what I was used to from Apple in the last 30 years that I use Apple) So here I give you some more details:

1. True, you have to do this to every single playlist. :(
2. If you have your playlist ALREADY checked in the view tab "as Songs" (deutsch: "als Titel") Josés solution won't work automatically. Then you have to choose first any other view, e.g. "as Album" and then choose again "as Songs". AFTER doing so, you have to again goto >view tag >Sort by >Title (or however you want to sort). These changes were automatically reflected on my iOS devices iPhone and iPad (if you have internet connection) seconds after the change (to be sure, give it maybe a minute) without an extra sync. But depending on your software version you might need e mechanical synchronization.
3. You can then even go back in the view tab and choose again "as Playlist" and the correct sorting method won't change back to the chaos but stay intact.
4. This solution works also for smart playlists
5. Another solution might be the one from HelpfulSB two posts up. A more detailed description might be found here: What does " copy to play order " actually… - Apple Community (Not checked. Let us know if it works if you do!)

I recently found a solution to this, had the exact same problem.

1. On Mac>Music highlight the playlist in question (I had to do this for each playlist :( )
2. In the view tab make sure "as Songs" is checked (I previously had as Playlists checked)
3. Still in view tab>Sort by>Title(or however you want to sort)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each playlist
5. Sync iPhone with Mac and
6. Playlist should be in alphabetical order on both phone and Mac

Hope this works for you. I found this problem extremely frustrating as well.

Hi deanh1234,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities. 

It sounds like you're having problems with sorting music on your iPhone and we're happy to help!

To sort your music on your iPhone follow these steps:

1. "Tap Library, then tap Playlists, Albums, Songs, TV & Movies, or Music Videos.
2. Tap Sort, then choose a sorting method, such as title, artist, recently added, or recently played."

For additional information, see View albums, playlists, and more in Music on iPhone.

We hope this helps.

Take care.

Hello Karina, any thoughts?

I have the same exact problem, I can't find any way to sort the songs within a Playlist, no matter what I do at iTunes or iPhone directly, I just can't sort by name. Any help?

Try sorting by Artist on your Mac instead of Album by Artist, and then replacing the playlist.

I replaced the playlist manually rather than syncing, so our cases are slightly different, but I found that the Artist sort carried over to the iPhone while the Album by Artist sort did not.

Another factor is that I'm stuck on Mojave for unrelated reasons and am therefore using iTunes on the my MacBook Pro rather than Music. Hopefully the process will work for you anyway.

Hi all,

I did have this problem but think it’s quite a simple fix to something that was annoying me.

When you’re looking at your Apple Music on your mac (I don’t think there is a way to do this with just an iPhone), connect your phone to the mac and then click on the 3 dots at the top of the playlist.

On the drop down there is a “copy to play order” option. Simply click on this and it will copy the order you have organised your playlist to be sorted by (I sort by title).

Just to note, the way to sort on music in the first place is to click on view (on the top bar) > sort by > then choose your method of sorting. Just something I’ve seen a couple of people say in comments.

Hope that helps in some way and if I’ve misunderstood please let me know.

Same issue, and this is a pretty fundamental problem for me fully adopting Apple Music. I've migrated all my playlists over from Spotify, but the fact that I do not have the ability to sort these playlists is maddening. When I follow the steps above, the sorting of the playlist on the Mac side doesn't seem to have any bearing on the iPhone end. It defaults to user order in the playlist on the Mac side. E.g. the original order of the playlist sorted Ascending. What ultimately is missing is sorting on the Apple Music app, which would then let you at least sort by artist / album / title or reverse the "manual" order either ascending / descending.

This is so frustrating - I have a variety of smart playlists that always updated to the song order that they were in on iTunes... now, with Music, you never know what you're going to get. I've tried removing, recreating, resorting, copying to play oder, and they all seem to work... but then don't. Honestly, it seems like the iOS and MacOS teams have different ideas of what "alphabetically" means - the playlists themselves are in a different order on my phone and Music (on MacOS), which I've learned to live with, but is so stupid. I wouldn't care which way they choose to define the alphabet, I just want it to be predictable on my phone.

The solution offered by other users doesn't really seem to work for me, I have re-sorted the playlist on my computer and re-synced to my phone, and the playlist song order is still reversed or in some random order.

Weird how Apple spends so much effort trying to get me to switch/pay for Apple Music but ignores the simplest functionality and bugs that make it so I would happily pay them instead of Spotify. Spotify doesn't have smart playlists or support half the functionality of iTunes/Music, but at least it is consistent and the idea of switching only to be frustrated is totally off-putting.

Thanks but unfortunately that defeats the purpose of using a smart playlist. I have two theories - first, all the playlists that I made originally in iTunes work fine, only the new ones I created in Music give me trouble. Second, the smart playlists work for a little while them stop updating and switch to some default order - usually “most played”. I just delete and recreate the smart playlist with the same rules and use it until I have to do it again. Stupid. Apple should just give full control to other apps that care enough to give us what we want, like Marvis or Cs.

In iTunes, click on the playlist you want to change. Go to View > Show View Options > View As: "Songs" & Sort By: "Name." Exit out of that menu. Click on the section labeled "Name" in the actual playlist and it'll be alphabetized for you. If you have a Smart Playlist, it will automatically change your playlist on your iPhone/iPad. If not, you may have to right click on the playlist name and click update. After that, you're set.

I finally found a work around. The issue is only with the smart playlists for some reason. So, I open the smart playlist sort it how I want it with the “view songs”, select all and then right click and add to a “new playlist”. Then it makes a new manual playlist in the order I set it and I can delete the smart list. Super annoying that it has to be done this way, but it worked.

This is the answer. Unfortunately the feature to directly do so on your device was removed.

open iTunes

click on your playlist

click view in the top left

click sort by

Just spent way too long trying to find it. This is what I get for not having added new music to my library for a long time.

@Amighty. I agree crazy annoying. This is the convoluted workaround I have found. I open the smart playlist sort it how I want it with the “view songs”, select all and then right click and add to a “new playlist”. Then it makes a new manual playlist in the order I set it and I can delete the smart list. Super annoying that it has to be done this way, but it worked.