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Copy itunes library from mac to iphone

I have a personal music library (5mb) on my Mac. I want to copy it to my wife's Iphone/iPad. What is the easiest (safest) way to do this?



Thanks


Posted on Oct 24, 2022 12:46 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 27, 2022 3:57 AM

You have to add content using iTunes. You cannot move items from one iOS device to another.


The easiest way to go about things is to create a single playlist that has the content that she wants, and sync that. Slightly more involved is to make a playlist folder that can then hold a number of different playlists, both regular and smart and include everything in that folder, and you can do likewise if you want to change the selection that syncs to your iPhone. Smart playlists allow you to, for example, rotate in content that hasn't been played in months, or automatically include say 4Gb of your most played and/or highest rated content. In the past I used the grouping field to mark tracks for each member of the family, e.g. Alice/Bob or Bob/Charlie, and then created lists with rules like Grouping contains Alice, such that each new addition to the library could be marked up, and would then automatically go into the playlists that were scheduled to sync with each user's devices according to their tastes.


tt2

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 27, 2022 3:57 AM in response to PaulD_

You have to add content using iTunes. You cannot move items from one iOS device to another.


The easiest way to go about things is to create a single playlist that has the content that she wants, and sync that. Slightly more involved is to make a playlist folder that can then hold a number of different playlists, both regular and smart and include everything in that folder, and you can do likewise if you want to change the selection that syncs to your iPhone. Smart playlists allow you to, for example, rotate in content that hasn't been played in months, or automatically include say 4Gb of your most played and/or highest rated content. In the past I used the grouping field to mark tracks for each member of the family, e.g. Alice/Bob or Bob/Charlie, and then created lists with rules like Grouping contains Alice, such that each new addition to the library could be marked up, and would then automatically go into the playlists that were scheduled to sync with each user's devices according to their tastes.


tt2

Oct 24, 2022 6:28 PM in response to PaulD_

Syncing with a new library will want to replace everything currently on the device and replace it with a selection from the library. Is her content in a library on her computer? Can it be copied over and merged into yours? Or see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community. It may make more sense to clone your library over to her computer (assuming she has one), then see can merge her content in, and fillet out what she doesn't want before syncing to her device.


tt2

Oct 26, 2022 8:10 PM in response to PaulD_

Thanks Turingtest2,

On further research:

  1. My Mac music library is 53GB, But 11gb on iPhone. Is there any reason for this other than differences in content? (which I purposely maintain)
  2. She really wants selected albums from the library. Is there a way to transfer selected albums from my Mac or iPhone to her iPad or iPhone?

Thanks for your indulgence!

Copy itunes library from mac to iphone

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