MacBook Pro not syncing purchased songs to iPod Nano

my MacBook Pro won’t sync purchased songs onto my iPod Nano 5 (or any of my other old devices). I have Apple Music, but decided to purchase some of my favorite songs with the spare money on my iTunes account. I clicked to show info on the purchased songs, and it clearly says “purchased”. But it doesn’t show up on my iPod when I sync. Similar experience when trying to add a few CDs to my library for the iPod, though I had previously added these albums through Apple Music. What is going on???

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Feb 13, 2026 4:12 AM

Top-ranking reply

BringBackiPod182 Author

Level 1

21 points

Posted on Feb 22, 2026 6:00 PM

I fixed it!!! The songs were being downloaded as Dolby Atmos files, which are not compatible with older iPods. I found the setting in Apple Music preferences to turn off Dolby Atmos downloads (which also saved me a ton of storage). Deleted the old downloads and redownloaded- this time showing as purchased AAC files and successfully syncing to my little green iPod! Hope this helps if anyone else has the same issue 😁

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MacBook Pro not syncing purchased songs to iPod Nano

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