Apple Music no longer shows album artwork on playlists

The update to macOS 14.2 has now changed the behaviour in the Music app on Mac to be the same as iOS. Or, to put it another way, it's broken on Mac now as well.

SUBMITTED!! 👍🏼

”Please bring back album artwork on playlists! This is ridiculous. What a dumb idea to remove it and replace it with, what…? generic designs? 🙄 Stop changing things that don’t need changing. Just because the younger generations don’t care to know what albums are or how important the marriage of album and artwork has ALWAYS been doesn’t mean the rest of the living people on the planet want to get rid of it. And going forward, if you’re going to continue to change things that are significant, AT THE VERY LEAST 🤦🏻‍♂️ make it an “option” to choose or not choose! How are you people the ones allowed to make decisions??”

Yep. It’s a disaster how these baby undergraduates, who have never used classic itunes, ruin what used to be the best music player.

Every iteration of Apple Music on Mac has got worse. It is shocking and this current version is the worst by far.

i have 2 Mac Minis and I wish I’d left one just as a media server instead of updating it to this Android wanna be

I clickedthe link on one of these posts for feedback here and filed my complaint. Please do the same. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

looks really bad, I’m going back to Spotify

Okay, I'm going to try to document how I get my album art in my playlists. It may get messy, as this Apple Community forum format isn't the best to work with but I'll try it and hope it helps someone. Apologies in advance if this method doesn't work for you.

Please note: This only works using the Music app on a Mac. I can't find a way of doing it on the iPhone but if you then sync your playlists from Mac to iPhone, the playlist artwork will also show up on the phone.

Playlist Step 1 :

Select an album in Music (on Mac) using the three dots that show up when you mouse over an album and click on them. Then, from the pop up menu, choose 'Add to Playlist', then 'New Playlist'. You'll now see the new options we all know... and hate!

Playlist Step 2 :

Use the left arrow or just click on the small image icon (shown here with a red arrow) to the left of those dots to select this blank option.

Do not click on the plus sign or add any artwork.

Playlist Step 3 :

Now just type in a playlist title and click create.

Playlist Step 4 :

If you now go to your list of playlists and select the one you've just created, you should see it has had your album artwork automatically added, just as it is in your list of albums.

Playlist Step 5 :

Now go and select some more albums and use 'Add to Playlist', making sure you add them to this new playlist, whatever you've called it. When you next select that playlist, you should see that Apple Music has created a collage just as it used to do.

This is the worse change I've experienced. Music lovers can instantly identify an album by looking at its cover, not some simplistic design. What on Earth were Apple thinking? It's also actually slower to create a playlist, as it no longer automatically adds the album title, which you used to be able to then leave as is, or edit. I particularly loved the four album covers in a playlist design feature. All of this gone because someone inside Apple thought this new playlist version was a good idea. Did anybody ask for this? I very much doubt it but even if they did, surely the option to use either method would have been a better way to go and more considerate to its many users.

I'm an old user (69), so probably not in Apple's considered demographic but it's obvious from the comments on this thread and others that this is not a popular implementation. So, I'm sitting here with my M1 MacBook Air, iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Watch Series 9... and a version of Apple Music that I no longer find suitable for my needs. Thanks, Apple.

I’m using the artwork from Apple Music. I screenshot 4 covers in the Mac version of Apple Music, put them in. 2x2 grid in OmniGraffle, then export as PNG before adding to the playlist. I use the Press Shift-Command 5 keyboard shortcut on Mac to get a capture box that I set to just be the size of the artwork on screen. If you do Get Info on a track in the playlist you can choose a tab with the artwork, and use the chevon’s to go to the next track. Tacking screenshots as you go. See this Apple page for how to use screenshot in various ways Take screenshots or screen recordings on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

The new Cooke Music on Mac is absolutely atrocious! I import an album and want to create a playlist of it. I used to do this and it would add the album artwork to each track and the playlist. No more! what a retrospective idea. It won't even allow me to add album artwork not matter what Apple instructions I follow. Apple are getting worse with lots of, supposed, updates. Very disappointing

There used to be a site that offered the old itunes layout which was superb. Worked perfectly but it now seems to have disappeared since Apple made the gigantic mistake of deleting itunes when you upgrade and putting the disaster that is Apple Music app in its place. Just attrocious and Apple don’t care at all.

For what it's worth - I sent the following product feedback:

Please bring back album artwork on playlists! This is a step back - the previous version which took a sampling of albums from the playlist, was much more usable, because if the title didn't indicate what kind of music was in the playlist, the art would. Now the art is generic, and provides no value. It feels that often the changes you make aren't validated by people who actually use the product.

This from Apple support. Report the problem through their support and feedback channels.

“Thank you for your patience. I have checked my resources here and I have found that the feature is still under review. I would request you to please keep an eye on the changes.

Apple engineers were aware with the feedback that was sent by our customers. For now, I would highly recommend to try the new features and see for any changes. I don't wanted to say that this is a trial and error, but, rest assured that they are working on it as you have mentioned that there are a lot of customer that is not happy with the changes.”

All the artwork on my playlists and tracks show artwork that looks like a snowstorm. I spent hours loading my artwork on my playlists and now it’s all gone. This just blows!!! Bring back the old way, as this IS NOT aestheticly pleasing.