can i transfer iphone playlist to itunes

plug in your device, in my case my iphone. make sure you're not on auto sync. on your device, right click the playlist that you want moved to your itunes. export to your desktop as an xml file. you can now unplug your device. back to itunes, go to file, library, import playlist and import the xml file you just saved to your desktop. Assuming you have all the songs on your playlist already in your library, there should be no issues. in my case, i mixed some music videos with my playlist and those did not go through. I just manually added them in after i figured out why "not all files were processed" hope this helps

When I plug in my iphone, the playlists that are on my iphone do not appear anywhere on my itunes screen so I'm wondering how to "right click" on the target playlist to export it.

see that arrow next to your iPhone? click on it to make it point down to see the contents of your iPhone

moflanclan wrote:

When I plug in my iphone, the playlists that are on my iphone do not appear anywhere on my itunes screen

Click the gray "Disclosure triangle" to the left of the iPhone name.

I never knew what the triangle was for. Good to know.

By some miracle this issue seems to have resolved! I just played around with my phone creating new lists and editing existing ones. I synced my phone and all changes remained intact on the phone and the lists and the changes went to my computer and showed up in iTunes. I tried this several times with variations on the changes and additions and it always worked. I cannot explain why all of sudden this process is working the way it should have been working all along. For reference, on the Music page of the sync menu, my phone is set to "Sync music" and "sync selected songs and playlists." I synced from the main (summary page) using the button in the bottom right corner. Interestingly, after the new playlist came over to iTunes, it was automatically checked off as one of the chosen playlists to be synced each time. Go figure.

Aha! The list of improvements on the iTunes upate released on June 11 includes: "Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly delete playlists created on a device" How many years did it take Apple to figure that out??

Perfect, Thanks for the tip!!

All playlist you create on iPhone music library, it will not appear on iTunes, first you can transfer iPhone music playlist to computer local as xml files, then run iTunes and add to its library. but if you want to transfer playlist off computer, you need one software to help, like iPhone transfer or **rip for iPhone. Good luck~~~

Hey everyone!!! I believe I'm on the right thread and I HOPE SO or an iPhone is about to become a trash weight.

I am trying to figure out a way whereby when I add songs to a playlist via my iPhone and/or re-arrange the Playlist order, I am able to sync my iPhone to iTunes and have iTunes reflect the changes and/or additions I have made to the Playlist. All of the music isn't necessarily purchased through the iTunes Store, however, they are all .mp3.

I saw the successful feedback about exporting the playlist and then importing back, HOWEVER...

when I click on the right triangle to show my iPhone playlists; it mirrors iTunes. For example, my playlist has 245 songs and iTunes is showing 237 (both on the playlist below the right triangle and in the Playlist section itself in iTunes. So if and when I sync, I lose those 8 songs and have to go back and manually add to the playlist on the phone again and re-order etc.

What am I missing and is there a way to make changes on the iPhone and not lose everything during a sync.

I can't thank you enough for any help anyone has to offer!!!!!!!

@donkeylarry - Either import the songs to your iTunes library or copy them and past them in the folder; thereafter, updating your library in iTunes.

FYI: donkeylarry's post was 15 months ago.

I Tried to transfer my playlists from my IPhone to iTunes. I followed the steps on previous post, but I got a message saying that some songs could not be imported to iTunes because they don't exist. Any other idea on how to transfer this music?

I think that for the XML export/import method to work all songs on the device must have been placed there by the same library that you are trying to transfer the playlist into, and the relevant songs must not have been deleted and then reimported to the library.

If the songs are in the library and have the same tag properties in both the library and the device then my script ImportDevicePlaylists should be able to transfer playlists. If you don't have all the content in the library see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.

tt2

I couldn't figure it out so bought a software program called Macroplant for $39. Works fine and saved me a ton of time.