What does the dotted circle mean?

At a guess the cause is an uncompleted sync operation which leaves the records about what has and has not been transferred in an inconsistent state. Ideally iTunes would gracefully tidy up during the next sync, but it doesn't. 😕

Try the following all-purpose steps for dealing with erratic device or sync behaviour. They assume that all of the content you want on the device is in your library ready for restoring. If it isn't see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device first. I would also recommend you copy everything out of the camera roll if you haven't already.

1. Backup device.
2. Restore as a new device.
3. Restore the backup you made earlier.

Use an encrypted backup if you want to preserve passwords, Wi-Fi settings, web history and health data where appropriate. I also suggest syncing with a selection of playlists (unless you're using iCloud Music Library) rather than manually adding content as, if nothing else, the process above is easier to do if you ever have to go through it again.

tt2

My grey circles are songs that I got from someone elses itunes library and when I tried syncing my iPhone to my new MacBook the songs wouldn't transfer without my friends itunes password. I wasn't worried about the songs transferring so I thought by not inserting the password they would just delete.....but they didnt. So now they're sitting in my itunes library greyed out, with a dotted circle. I cannot do anything with these songs! They are very annoying and I have yet to find a way to delete them.

This happened to me after I had to reload music to my iPhone from my iTunes library. What I did was delete each song, that won't let me play because it has that dotted circle next to it, when I look at it in my iTunes library-under my device music. Then went to my main iTunes library, and then added each song I needed to add again. It worked this time when I did it this way.

I've figured it out!

It is when you've dragged the file say, from your Mac to your iPhone, but you don't have enough memory free on your iPhone for the song to copy accross.

Happened to me when I was copying a whole playlist across, and there were some new songs in it. Don't know if that effects it in anyway... (it might say there's no space if you just individually try to copy a song to music).

It also doesn't seem to work in a way in which iTunes copys the songs in the same order as they are in. For example, if there's only two which won't copy then it doesn't mean it'll be the last two songs in a playlist or album, it could be the third and seventh!

Anyway, I hope this helps and finally solves the mystery of the dotted circle!

Hello all, i've tried to do everything you guys suggested, still have the grey dotted circle on my musics when its viewed in the iphone tab, i cannot add any musics to the iphone 4S, I even tried restarting back to the original factory configuration, it still didnt work either!!

Im running a itunes 11.

This must be a bug!!

Anyone found the solution?

This worked well for me. Thanks for your posting. After backing up my iPod to both iCloud, and iTunes, I proceeded with the reset. It took awhile to complete the backup, but I believe I now have a rejuvenated device. Not only are all my songs now properly loaded, but the iPod now has a much quicker response. I actually believe this may be a good approach to consider, when dealing with a slow responding device, especially an older device, weighted down by the many iOS updates.

I had this problem just this morning. iTunes would not import folders or files.

I fixed it by going to: Edit > Preferences > Advanced then ticked the box that says "Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library".

I have to say I much preferred iTunes BEFORE this "update"

Interesting that some have said that it's to do with lack of storage, but I'm actually getting the dreaded "dotted circles" with my new iPhone 7+, and I have ample storage (103.95 GB to be exact), so I'm actually unsure if that this is the case. I'm at odds as to what to do, as the music just will not copy onto my iPhone and it's constantly trying to sync.

Any help regarding this, or if anyone has actually find out the cause, I'd be very grateful.

None of those things are true for me. I do have enough room on my device and I do have manually manage videos and music checked off and I STILL have dotted circles next to tones that will not sync with my iphone from my mac. Very frustrating.

Hey, I tried doing all the things other people were saying and nothing seemed to work and then I went on my Mac and noticed that when i clicked the phone icon on my Itunes dashboard it brought me to a page where I can see my storage space, and next to that was a "sync" button. I took a gamble and pressed it and too my surprise it got rid of all the dotted circles simultaneously and just downloaded them all. You can try doing that or manually connecting you Iphone to your computer with its charger so it has a direct route. It was a quick-fix for me and I hope it will help you out too.

I found a 3rd meaning for the gray dotted circle icon that appears on my iPhone when viewed through iTunes on my Macbook:

3. It can mean that the song isn't checked (that column in iTunes with the "black checkmark").

To address this, go to the view in iTunes that shows the iPhone's contents ("On My Device" appears above the list of media types and playlists), click on Music, notice that the song in question lacks a checkmark, and check it.

Those who have "figured it out" are WRONG. I have a new iPhone 8 with plenty of available space and the "Manually Manage Videos" option is selected and I still can't sync those ringtones I like way better than the terrible choice offered by iOS for the past 200 years... I had no problem using those on my iPhone 7 but not anymore. I am SO tired of the limitations imposed to us with our own devices that we paid a LOT of money for by Apple and enjoy so much the freedom Android offers that I'm afraid this iPhone is gonna end up in my drawer and I'm gonna go get myself a Samsung 8 or a Huawei Mate 10 Pro and won't need to eat so many Tylenol...
Anyway if anyone knows the real reason of this nonsense, I'd like to know since Apple help is nonexistent...

Try the suggestion above.

tt2

The dotted circle is the initial state of synchronisation (ie not yet). It will be a pie chart with the dark part showing the progress when in action.

I discovered it when a smart list, used to synchronise unread audiobooks, didn't work for some new items in list (the smart list tested for unread and marked to include).

Sorry, I cannot define the defiitive bug, but a bit of fiddling, and, OMG, the pie charts started to work!

How do you delete the songs that have not yet been downloaded? I do not want them in my Itunes anymore. They're mainly duplicates that I turned into mp3 versions.