Syncing Music from MacBook Sequoia 15.6.1 to iPhone OS 26.1 : nothing shows except purchases from iTunes store

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Syncing Music from MacBook Sequoia 15.6.1 to iPhone OS 26.1 : nothing shows except purchases from iTunes store

I bought an iPhone 16 Pro a few months ago. It is updated to iOS 26.1.

A few weeks ago, I updated my 2024 M3 MacBook Air to Sequoia 15.6.1.

I am now having issues syncing my music from my MacBook to my iPhone. It is only syncing music I bought from the iTunes store and downloaded. It is not syncing anything I ripped from a CD (and I have been ripping music from CDs for 20+ years, so most of my music library has NOT been bought from the iTunes store).

In the past, OS updates have "hidden" my CD music from the iTunes or Music app. I could fix that by reimporting the entire library.

Now, all of my CDs appear in Music on my MacBook but refuse to sync to my iPhone.

I do not have an Apple Music subscription, and do not stream music. I have always synced my iPhone to my MacBook with a data cable (in this case, the Thunderbolt USB-4, as that's what both devices have.)

I have tried Music> File > Library> Organize Library > Consolidate Library. I have signed out of Media & Purchases on my iPhone and logged back in and even deleted Music & reinstalled; signed out off all devices completely and logged back in; checked again my setting for syncing via the Finder. Please help. Nothing I've tried has worked.

iPhone 16 Pro

Posted on Dec 23, 2025 7:45 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 23, 2025 9:05 PM in response to Zururakmed

I'm having a slightly similar issue, but I had no issues synching between iOS 26.1 and MacOS. The issue only arose after the upgrade to 26.2.

I will say that I got a dialog telling me that I had to upgrade to connect to my iPhone, but I simply bypassed it by clicking the "not now" button. I have to wonder whether iOS 26.2 is making the MacOS non-optional.

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Answer 2

Zururakmed Author

Level 1

20 points

Dec 24, 2025 3:22 AM in response to FrankMoore

Thanks for the response; I updated the phone to iOS 26.2 and synced once again. Now the songs ripped from CDs do show up on Music on my phone, but they are greyed out and if I touch them, I get the error message "This item is not currently available in your country or region." If I hold and press on the song, I get a tile with song info and a thumbs down with the message "show less."

I am guessing this is a digital rights management issue that Apple will either fix or not, as it chooses. It does seem they are driving us to secure content ONLY from them.

I will try to find another CD drive to plug n to my MacBook (the last cheap external drive I had failed, and I have no easy wy to rip new music) and re-rip some CDs and see if that helps, as it did for one user who posted in 2023.

<sigh> And Apple used to be the --easy-- platform.

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