Syncing music from iMac to iPhone.

julianharold wrote:

I would like to sync music on my iMac's hard drive with my iPhone 13. The Mac is running Sonoma 14.4. When I try to do so I receive the following message:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/0dd7254d-13ae-4fa7-8e5e-a8aff5bee3c9

Could you please tell me how to turn off Cloud Music Library?

On your iPhone, go to Settings ➜ Music ➜ Sync Library and make sure its turned off.

On your Mac go to the Music menu in the Music App, Settings ➜ General and make sure Sync Library is turned off.

You should not, however, need to sync anything if you are using iCloud Music Library. The iCloud Music Library takes the place of the direct sync and makes your music available on all your devices.

Turning it off, will make anything that was uploaded or matched from your Mac and is being accessed from the iCloud Music Library on your other devices, to stop being available on your other devices. Not sure you really want to do this.

And could you tell me if I am getting this message because I am subscribed to Apple Music?

Thankyou,

Yes, that is why you are getting the message.

Why do you need to sync if you are using the iCloud Music Library feature from the Apple Music subscription service?

When using the iCloud Music library anything in your Mac's Music Library is uploaded or matched to the iCloud Music library and made available to your other devices directly.

julianharold wrote:

Thank you, I want to be able to access my music (the music I own) when off line. I may be travelling and not have access to wifi or cellular data.

You can do that with the iCloud Music library. Anything you download directly to a device form the iCloud Music Library will be available to listen to while offline.

click here ➜ Add music to iPhone and listen offline - Apple Support

I think you are concerned that if I turn off Syncing then I will lose the playlists that I have created? Would playlists I have created re-establish themselves when I turn syncing back on?

Thanks,

Turning off iCloud Music Library, will as mentioned remove access to any and all songs and albums that were synced from the computer and are being accessed on other devices.

Any playlists containing these tracks will continue to exist, but the tracks inside will not work.

When you turn it on again, it will need to match or upload the songs from the Mac back onto the iCloud Music Library.

If for whatever reason the original library does not exist on the Mac, then its possible to loose all the tracks and albums when turning off the iCloud Music library.

You should stick to one method of accessing your music, and not be changing back and forth to avoid issues.

Assuming the Mac contains the original library it should be fine.

"Should" being the operative word.

Backup your library, before doing anything.