Why do I lost my music playlists when syncing ringtones in iTunes

Thank you. I need to wrap my head around that a little but that's the best response I've found so far (besides just replacing iTunes entirely which might or might not support multiple devices in a way that lines up with my idea of how it should work 🙂).

Uhh... I think. I have an iPod

Yes.

Allan Sampson wrote:

I don't automatically sync any device when connected to iTunes.

I don't think that's what was being asked (i.e. "do you auto-sync or manually manage music and video?")

By your description, you auto-sync music and video, but since your library exceeds your iPhone capacity you're auto-syncing to selected playlists, or artists, or genres, or any mix thereof. So you do auto-sync (which allows the syncing of ringtones), but what you don't do is allow iTunes to initiate the sync as soon as you connect your device.

I know that you know the difference, but the "automatically sync this device" when connected is often confused as "auto-syncing" but you can manually manage music and video and still use this automatic sync option. If you manually manage music and video, you can still sync other content so this option simply initiates that process for you when you connect to iTunes.

Strictly speaking, IMO this option to automatically initiate a sync is what "auto-sync" really means, and what people commonly refer to as "auto-sync" (as it pertains to content) is really just "syncing". A subtle, but important difference.

TheRhett wrote:

Thank you. I need to wrap my head around that a little but that's the best response I've found so far (besides just replacing iTunes entirely which might or might not support multiple devices in a way that lines up with my idea of how it should work 🙂).

You're welcome. If you want to read a very informative article on how to do this, take a look here:

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1154607&da=y

You don't have to go as crazy as the author does, but it's pretty cool how elaborate you can set this up as.

Okay, I finally got it to work and thought I'd report back as to what went sideways.

When I first set out to add a ringtone and realized that setting it to sync (or auto sync?) meant losing my other media, I set out to perform the sync manually.

I either got incomplete instructions or interpreted them wrong but I thought it said I could put a ringtone file on the my desktop and then drag/drop it directly to my iPhone. iTunes did seem to let me do this and even showed me a graphical representation of it happening. Once done, I had a grayed out "ghost copy" of my ringtone in the Tones folder on my iphone but it wouldn't show up as a ringtone in the phone settings. I tried to delete the ghost file but it wouldn't delete.

I subsequently found a set of instructions telling me I could perform the action as above but had to import the file into my Library and drag/drop from the Library NOT the Desktop. Unfortunately, having once done it wrong, nothing under our big yellow sun would work.

Finally, more out of frustration than anything else, I right-clicked the Tones folder (iPhone) and opened it in a new window. Once in a new window, I could delete the ghost file (wth?). Once th ghost file was gone, I drag/dropped the ringtone from the Tones folder in the iTunes Library to the Tones folder on the iPhone and everything works like it should.

I am still managing the media on the phone manually (meaning I drag/drop only the songs/playlists/media I want from my iTunes Library to the phone) and the ringtone behaves the same way.

I still think iTunes is broken and probably the weak link in the iOS offering. I should not have been able to do something so easily to disrupt functionality.

Anyway, thanks for all your input and creativity in helping me solve this problem. I realize it's a small thing to get snagged on and I appreciate your help. I think I learned a lot about how these two systems (iOS & iTunes) work.

TheRhett wrote:

I either got incomplete instructions or interpreted them wrong but I thought it said I could put a ringtone file on the my desktop and then drag/drop it directly to my iPhone.

Too bad you didn't mention that part earlier, that would've been a big red flag. You can't drag and drop anything to an iOS device directly from your computer's desktop. Instead, as you've learned you need to get things into iTunes first, then drag and drop from iTunes to your device. The same goes for any media content -- add to iTunes first, then from iTunes to the device.

You can drag and drop things from your desktop directly into your iTunes library, so you may have misunderstood that as dropping into your iPhone. I suspect that when you dropped the ringtone directly to your iPhone it went into iTunes but left your iPhone in an unknown state since this is not how it works. Ideally iTunes should give you a warning, or at least not create a ghost copy of the ringtone on your iPhone.

Glad you got it sorted out, without having to change your music sync method.

I wonder if you have solved this issue as I see it is an old post. But for anyone who is experiencing this issue, it is frustrating and I think I have it solved. When you download the ringtone it must be dragged from the library to the device. I think someone else mentioned this. Also, it cannot be dragged from the desktop as someone else mentioned. Instead, if your song is on the desktop, close i-tunes. Play the song from the desktop. I-tunes should pop open. If it is an m4r file, it will present itself in the library as a ringtone. Drag it from there to your device icon and it appears as a legit ringtone, not the grayed out unsyncable thing that is causing the trouble. Hope that helps someone. Took me an hour and a half to figure it out. : O P

I face the exact problem as starmate5, so does many of us who is unfamilliar wif apple pdt. I have never faced so much problem with all my previous non iphones. Iphone is driving us bonkers. With iphone, a simple and normal task can be made very difficult. Totally not cool