Move playlists from iPhone to iTunes

Chico_as wrote:

there is no "export" option available when I click the gray disclosure triangle...

The post was over 4 years ago. Things have changed and have been posted in this very thread.

Select the playlist on the iPhone.

Then iTunes menu File > Library > Export playlist...

eenar47 wrote:

HI Chris CA

Sorry to be dumb, but I can't see the disclosure triangle.

Please help as I also need to transfer playlists to my iTunes library.

Thanks a lot

The post was over 4 years ago. Things have changed and have been posted in this very thread.

Select the playlist on the iPhone.

Then iTunes menu File > Library > Export playlist...

Thanks Chris CA for your help with this. Called Apple support and they had no idea. Export playlist as XML worked (make sure the auto sync is turned off before you plug in your iPhone, as you've instructed). I was able to immediately download the playlists from my iPhone to my new PC/iTunes. About 30% of the songs in playlists were missing that were purchased or downloaded through other sources, but I had them saved to an external HD and migrated them as well.

All good. 🙂

I connect my iPhone to my Macbook Air, and I'm selecting my iPhone in my iTunes on my MacBook Air. Yet, the playlists I created on my iPhone do not appear in the "On My Device" list in my iTunes on my MacBook. The only playlists listed there are the ones that were on in my iTunes when I last synced my iPhone.

So, how do I import a playlists from my iPhone that my iTunes on my MacBook is not even seeing?

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.

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.

Thank you for solving my problem.

Thank you so much for answering this Chris CA, exactly what I was looking for 😀

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.

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

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).

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).

You might find my thoughts on Grouping track into albums useful in regard to the whole mix albums and artist vs. album artist thing.

"Don't use playlists" isn't very constructive. "Backup & don't lose your library" is better, but obviously no use if it has already happened. I could probably write a recursive playlist rescuing script for Windows (if I could find the time) but that wouldn't be much use to you.

tt2