Play music on iPhone, does not update plays or last played on Apple Music for Mac

I am having the same issue. Things work fine when playing music on my mac. But when playing from my phone it's not updating.

I contacted Apple Support the other day and they said they are aware of the issue and working on it. They said it might get fixed on the next update.

I would like everyone who reads this contact apple, so they can get this fixed ASAP

Downloaded 17.2 and still not updating recently played... Anyone else still with this problem after updating?

Just updated to iOS 17.2. I am still having this problem. I run and listen to music on my iPhone and/or watch, but in November it stopped updating my mac with play counts and dates. My iPhone and watch does pass along star ratings, and I can add/remove songs to playlists, but it still does not update my mac play counts and dates. Frustrating.

I’m experiencing the same issue and it’s really annoying. May not be a big deal for most, but this is really bugging me.

any word from Apple on them addressing this issue?

I tested it yesterday after updating IOS and MACOS and I can state that it is NOT fixed. I played two tunes from my library on my iPhone and those two tunes on my Mac showed last play times in the distant past.

As of 12/20/23 after a recent OS update Music is still not syncing across my devices. Changes to Playlist titles change in real time but the songs don't update. Not to my iMac, iPad or iPhone. GRRRRRR! For me one of the most important features of belonging to Music is to have all my devices synced so the number of plays and last played date are the same. I can't quite understand why Apple does not resolve this.

Is anyone having issues with Music not synchronizing between different Apple products?

If I add a song or favorite a song (or playlist) on my iPhone, it doesn't update on my other Apple products like my Apple Tv's or iPads. I spent hours the other week favouriting music on my iPad only to find out it didn't synchronize across all devices. I had this issue with 17.1, so I updated to 17.2 (on all my devices). Then I added a bunch of songs on my Iphone, wanted to show my wife the new music on my Apple TV, only to see my music was last updated days ago.

Idk how many of you have already tried this, but for me this worked to sync play counts again from my phone to my MacBook Pro:

1. On MacBook, go Settings > search for 'media sharing' > toggle and sign in with your apple ID > select update play counts
2. On iPhone, go settings > music > all the way at the bottom is 'home sharing' > sign in with the same Apple ID

Play counts now seem to be updating (although with a few hours lag, but that seemed to be the case before too).

I've got this sort of thing too.

I've got playlists on my iMac which update according to play count. For example, I'm currently on one called 'Under 3,' a list that has all the songs with play counts of 2 or less. It's so I go through all my music.

It's 'based' on my iMac and that is currently down to 22 songs. However, on iPhone, it's still at a couple of thousand, despite me playing Music daily from there. It hasn't updated since the old Queen died. On iPad, it's something else entirely.

I'm signed in with exactly the same Apple ID (it's the only one linked to Apple Music), all the sync boxes are checked all over and I've updated the Apple Music library from iMac, millions of times. I've signed out of my iMusic account and back in, to no avail. It's been going on (or not going on!), for many months, if not longer, so it's not an ios17 issue I'm guessing. However, what it IS, is very, very annoying.

Same for me. Still not updating. iPhone XR iOS 17.4 MacBook Air Monterey 12.7.3

Come on apple this need sorting.

Did you ever find a solution? This is had been happening to me for months now

I'm having the same issue after update to iOS 17. Play counts are not updating on other devices from iphone or ipod touch.

At the moment, itunes music doesn't seem to recognise that I'm using it on multiple devices. In the past, if I tried to play music on my iphone (for instance) while music was already playing on another device, I would get a warning message and music would stop playing on one of the devices.

However, this morning I tried playing music simultaneously on four devices (iMac, iphone, ipod touch and apple music on a PC) and had no messages and music kept playing on all devices at the same time.

I wondered if my apple ID was not working properly, but checked and I seem to be properly logged-in on all devices.

Furthermore, If I add a new album on one of my devices (all four), it appears on all my devices (all four), so apple ID is presumably fine. And if I manually update the music library on my Mac or PC (file/library/update icloud music library) the libraries update properly on my phone and ipod (and MAC/PC).

It just seems to be the play counts that don't update properly to icloud from my iphone or ipod. Up to installing iOS 17, the play counts updated automatically at least once a day, usually after the first play on iphone/ipod. So far, neither the plays from iphone or ipod have synced for two days.

I tried un-toggling the "Sync Library" on my iphone and then turning the "Sync Library" on again, hoping this might force a fresh sync. But it didn't.

I installed another update this morning that claimed to solve some bugs (icloud music problems was not listed as one of the issues), but, so far, there is no evidence that this update has helped.

One thing I did note this morning while looking at icloud settings on my phone, was that it asked me to agree to new terms and conditions for icloud. Again, no evidence yet that this has helped solve the play count issue.

Same here. I'm pretty sure there was a checkbox somewhere to synchronize playcount between iOS devices and the MacOS Apple Music library, but that option seems to have vaporized somehow. My best guess is that the whole issue has something to do with this:

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/17/apple-music-fraud/

Using Dough AppleScrips on the MacOS Apple Music playcount it is possible to manipulate playcount, for instance. I can image this route also can be used to beef up playcount for Apple Music Streams. One again, I don't know but it wouldn't surprise if this challenge for Apple to prevent playcount fraud on streams has something to do with this.

Nevertheless, if Apple introduces features it's aways with fireworks ans fanfare but when they ditch functions it keeps deadly quiet leaving users in the undocumented dark. Spending hours finding out what's going on, if it's a bug or user mistake or whatsoever and finding out it might be another undocumented change isn't what Apple famously promotes as 'user friendly' in my opinion.

Steve Denton wrote:

Does the next update solve the problem completely. That is - I currently have the very same playlist, one which should remove a song from the playlist after it has been played, on iMac, iPad, Apple TV and iPhone. And all are at different 'positions.' The only one that does update the playlist, is on the iMac. If I play any of the others, nothing happens, no updating.

I thought iCloud meant that each unit could update the playlist and accessing that playlist from another unit, would access the updated central playlist. Play a song on one, it is removed from the playlist, open the playlist on another, the playlist is minus one (as it were) on startup.

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[Edited by Moderator]

I can't comment on whether playlists using play counts are totally fixed because I don't have any. But for me it does look like the problem of iOS plays not getting counted in the macOS Music app has been resolved. It would seem like that would take care of the playlist count problem, too.