Move playlists from iPhone to iTunes

Hi Chris, so I tried the script and it did not work for me. I've also tried several of the third party programmes on the second link. TouchCopy worked for me. It was able to detect the playlist on my phone and I exported it onto my desktop, and followed your initial steps (File > Library > Import Playlist) and I now have them on my iTunes. Kudos!

Reboot = no help. 😟

I wish it could be as easy as a simple drag & drop between the 2 librtaries, and get rid of the **** 'sync' idea:

I don't understand why Apple can make so many things intuitive & user friendly, but not iTunes.

Connect the iPhone and select it in iTunes.

Click the gray disclosure triangle the left of the iPhone name in iTunes.

Select the playlist you want on the iPhone then right click - Export...

Save it as .xml file on the desktop.

Then iTunes menu File > Library > Import playlist and select the .xml file you saved on the desktop.

You can delete the .xml file on the desktop.

There are other tools listed in the user tip Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device. One of them may be more effective for you.

The original poster may have chosen to make their own response as correct since they found a tool that works for them, but it does sometimes happen that the wrong post gets marked if people click the solved/helpful links at the same time as composing as response.

tt2

I see this issue has been discussed before

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2648843?start=0&tstart=0

But still no real answer to the question of how to import multiple playlists in one go (other than the not so helpful advice of don't use playlists).

Mix albums with multiple artists can play havoc with a library, particularly when viewing on an iPhone. In the 'Artists' view, the artist with one track on a mix album will show up. You then have to sift through many artists to get to who you want, many of whom you never even realise existed on your collection (please dont point this out as a 'feature'). 'Album' view on the other hand restricts your search by albumn name rather than artist name, which is not always ideal.

Also then when you're on a long drive, you may want to set a whole collections of albums off in one go so you don't have to fiddle with the phone while driving.

Playlists offer a way around many of these issues, and it sounds like if you lose your playlists then iTunes makes it difficult to recover. Also it used to be much easier to sync playlists between iTunes and iPhone, rather than sync artist/album combinations (I've not used iTunes since the hard drive on my MBP crashed (6 months ago), so it may have improved).

Babarsmack wrote:

i accidently lost all of my playlists in the new Itunes. but still got them om my iPhone and iPad. You said... export the playlists from the iphone as you usually do.... hmm how do you usually do that??

Alternatively see this post.

tt2

And if that won't work (it does, I just tested it) because you've managed to lose the copy on the iPad for example, then use the method below to connect to a recent backup of the library in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder, export the playlist as an XML file, reconnect to the current library and import.

HT1589 - iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one

tt2

I tried a few apps a few years ago but nothing recently...

Turingtest2 (who posts in these forums) has written a script which can pull in playlists.

-> http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp#ImportDevicePlaylists

Also, he wrote this article (which has a link to the above)

-> Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device

Catabrownie wrote:

want to copy my ipod touch to my itunes on a pc

See this -> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201267

and if you have songs that are not iTunes purchases, see this -> Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device

Chris CAJul 1, 2012 2:28 PM Re: Move playlists from iPhone to iTunes
Re: Move playlists from iPhone to iTunesin response to MelissaLynD

Connect the iPhone and select it in iTunes.

Click the gray disclosure triangle the left of the iPhone name in iTunes.

Select the playlist you want on the iPhone then right click - Export...

Save it as .xml file on the desktop.

Then iTunes menu File > Library > Import playlist and select the .xml file you saved on the desktop.

You can delete the .xml file on the desktop.

MargDawgMay 27, 2013 12:43 PM Re: Move playlists from iPhone to iTunes
Re: Move playlists from iPhone to iTunesin response to Pandonodrim

I also couldn't find 'import playlist' under Library, but I discovered that if you click on the little rectangles in the top left corner of iTunes and select 'show menu bar', then a full menu appears, and under THAT menu, you can find import playlist if you go to File > Library > Import Playlist. Hope that helps!

UPDATE: This library "show menu bar" worked for me to export playlists from my old iphone. Whereas the previous answer method from Chris didn't allow a "right click to export" in my 2015 iTunes. Now I've imported playlists to my iTunes, but got the error message that not all songs could be included as they were apparently no longer in my iTunes library. So, I'm hoping I can reload them from my computer without having to repurchase. Thanks for this though.

MelissaLynD wrote:

Thanks, but I was trying to copy the opposite way, from iphone to itunes.

???

How is copying a playlist from the iPhone to iTunes the opposite of copying a playlist from the iPhone to iTunes?

You export the playlist from the iPhone (thru iTunes) then import to iTunes.

Thanks for your answer to Melissa's question Chris. It told me what I needed to do to copy a playlist from my iPhone to my iTunes. I found her comment about how she solved the problem unclear. I am also unclear why she felt your answer was not the answer she asked for. By the way I used a text file for the transfer on my windows OS computer. So maybe it does not mater if you use xml or txt as the format for the file. Thanks again.

Additional question - CA's method works one playlist at a time, is there a way to do more than one at a time? I've got about 150 playlists to get through!

Oh and I too have no idea why the original poster did not find CA's answer the right one.

Thanks for the link. I had alredy done the Phoneview method, but it didn't restore the playlists for some reason (although I note that your link indicates that Phoneview does support playlist retrieval, perhaps I just did it incorrectly, can't remember as it was a while ago I did it).