I am FED up - Manually Syncing Music - ITUNES is a trainwreck - Help?

Drag and drop is manually manage.

Select manually mange music, then you can drag and drop from itunes.

Or you can make playlists and "choose" what you want in the playlists, then you can "choose" which playlists you want to sync.

No, that wasn't useless information... That was the answer to your question. That's how it's done. You can either choose to sync everything over, or choose what you want to sync over. But, if you want to choose, you're going to have to tell the computer. It doesn't have a telepathic connection to users, as of yet, anyway. You can click the checkboxes, or drag over playlists, or however you want to do it. You said "Bring back drag and drop!" But,a s roaminggnome said, drag and drop is manually manage.

This worked for me on my iPad. I opened Music, clicked playlists on the bottom menu. Then went to the tab that says "more" and chose "shared." Then I clicked the name of my libaray "Barbara's Library" and voila! All the songs in my playlists appeared. This solution also added all of my music videos (which also weren't syncing). Hope it works for you!

PS: I use and pay for iTunes match so all my songs/vids are in the cloud and I still have to download. (which is a time-consuming bummer). If you don't use iTunes match, you will have to create a playlist with your songs, then sync like you would an iPod ... plug in the iPhone, click on the device in the left navigation panel, click on music in the right navigation and choose "manually manage." Then choose your playlist. Re-sync and it should work.

gregcklp wrote:

I know how to manually add my music.

No offense, but I don't think you do, at least not fully.

The "Manually added items" window that you're referring to is a separate issue than manually managing your iPhone. The purpose of this (tiny) window is for those who want to either (a) delete direct-purchases made to their device, or (b) remove manually-added items even though they auto-sync.

(a) is needed because iTunes purchases made directly to the device over-the-air seem to remain on the device, even though they (should) get transferred to your iTunes library on your next connection. Such purchases remain on the device until you forcibly delete them from this category, or manually delete them one-by-one. In the old days such purchases would appear in a "Purchased" playlist where you could delete some or all purchases from the device, after transferring them to your library of course. This "Manually added items" window is a fairly new feature, I think introduced with iOS 5 and iTunes 10.

(b) is needed because some users auto-sync but have extra room on their device. In that case, they can manually drag and drop additional songs to their device, so this window let's them manage items they've manually added.

In your case, if you look on the main summary page of your iPhone there is a "Manually manage music and video" option. If you're manually managing your iPhone then this is selected, right?

To edit what's on your iPhone you need to click on the small triangle to the left of your iPhone's name to "open" its contents, then you'll see the Music folder with all your songs and playlists. From there you can delete songs and/or edit your playlists, and of course drag and drop other songs or playlists from your library. THIS is how you manually manage your iPhone, not monkeying with the "Manually added items" window (although that may work, it's just not ideal as you've found).

Glad it helped 😉