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Why won't my songs transfer from itunes to my iphone?

When I plug in my phone into my computer and try to sync my playlists on iTunes to my iPhone, the sync completes but the songs will not transfer. I even tried deleting the existing playlists from my iPhone and I couldn't even do that. I have literally tried everything that I know. Any suggestions?

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Sep 28, 2013 2:13 PM

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Posted on Jun 16, 2017 4:17 AM

I figured it out! A million hours later and 4 in the morning but I figured it out. So I did everything updated my iPhone 7 newest software same w iTunes on my windows computer everything. Nothing worked. Until I had to go to my actual iPhone go to settings, music, then turn off iCloud Music Library and enable home sharing. Then once I did that I went back onto my computer went to iTunes and synced manually. All I did was on iTunes go to your phone section and click sync. Once I did so I was then able to add music. I dragged the music to the device and it was finally added. I domt know what's going on w apple and why it's become so much harder to sync music. It was so much easier back in the day. Anywho I'm just glad I finally figured it out. Now I can listen to my hypnobirthing tracks on my phone.

285 replies

May 27, 2015 8:11 PM in response to ajal1

Here is what worked for me. Make sure you have your credit card handy in case you have to verify security code, expiration date, etc:


On your iPhone, go to Settings --> Itunes and App Store --> Then click on your Apple ID. When the pop up appears, click "Sign Out", then sign right back in. It had me re-verify some of my credit card information. Once I did that, I reconnected my iPhone to iTunes, and synced. It added all of the greyed out songs to my iPhone.

Jul 1, 2015 3:47 PM in response to ajal1

There are 15 pages on this topic so I haven't read the whole thread. Apologies if this is a dupe!


Many of my files that had copied to my 4S and were now refusing to copy to my 6 were fan-generated audiobooks (we call it podfic.) They had copied before, they were not copying now! After finding out that the problems appear to be related to ownership issues, and knowing that m4b is a protected format, I tried picking a single audiobook and changing it's extension to m4a instead of m4b. Then I re-synched and boom, it appeared on my phone! Obviously this may not work if the files are genuinely copyrighted, but if it's just that the file creator chose to use m4b, you may be able to batch rename your files. Especially with audiobooks. It did work for me. 🙂


By the way, I used NameChanger, a free tool, to bulk change my file extensions to m4a. I also backed up all of the files before batch renaming them in case it all went horribly wrong (never hurts to be careful), and I have iTunes set to keep my library in synch with my files.

Jul 10, 2015 11:51 PM in response to GeeGee09

and use iCloud synch this iPhone in the toolbox. Finally, finally songs are showing up in my iTunes.

I did so many things, following all the suggestions that after a couple of days dealing with Bad Apple

when it finally started working correctly, as in just now, I do not remember all the steps. **** you Bad Apple,

you just make it so hard to love you like so many of us once did in that time before when updates meant good things

and not this mess from Bad Appleland.

Jul 30, 2015 11:07 PM in response to ajal1

Let me share my way with you just as reference. This is what I do when transfer songs from iTunes to iPhone. Launch iTunes on the computer and plug into the iPhone to the PC. Click the "File" button and choose to add files or folder from your PC to iTunes library. Click the "Music" icon to sync the audio files. Check the "Sync Music" icon to decide to sync "Entire music library" or "Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres". If you want to copy the entire music library, check that option and it is done by clicking "Apply". After clicking "Apply", the transfer begins.If you want to view the transferred files, click the "Music" button under "On My Device" in the left column.

Aug 3, 2015 11:37 AM in response to ajal1

I just encountered this same problem with my new iPhone 6. I backed up my old iPhone 5c and got a new phone yesterday. When I restored from backup however, the music all played fine until I left the house… 😕


However, I found it was easy to solve this by going to:

Settings > Music > Turn off iCloud music library


Once iCloud music library is turned off, plug in your phone with a cable to you Mac/pc/laptop. Open iTunes and sync. This then starts the transfer of your music.


All 537 of my purchased songs are currently downloading 🙂


You can then turn on iCloud music library back on again so that you can listen to your Apple Music.


Hope this helps.

Aug 21, 2015 11:33 AM in response to ajal1

i'm having the exact same problem When I plug in my phone into my computer and try to sync my playlists on iTunes to my iPhone, the sync completes but the songs will not transfer. I even tried deleting the existing playlists from my iPhone and I couldn't even do that. I have literally tried everything that I know. Any suggestions

IPHONE 6 plus iOS 8.4.1

Aug 26, 2015 12:22 AM in response to ajal1

This is to the original post/problem. This worked for me, and you should try this first before doing all that reseting of your phone and backups and who knows what else everyone has been saying... lol so, (main issue) you try and add songs to your device, it completes whatever syncing process it was doing, you check the device's music (on the comp display) and the "added" music is in gray with the hollow circle next to it, which means it is like "ready" to sync, but never does. From here highlight the song(s) that are grayed out, click edit>delete. so you just got rid of the "ready" songs from your device. try and sync them again. It worked the third time for me. Good luck!

Sep 24, 2015 12:59 AM in response to ajal1

ok i had the same problem and i didn't ave to reset my whole iphone i just had to update the software on my iphone from my computer, like when i connected the iphone i clicked on its icon it says update the phone and thats what i did, i had to keep it connected for like 2 hours but now it adds my music normally

Oct 8, 2015 10:57 AM in response to ajal1

I think everyone who has asked this question has found a solution to their problem, but I was having a similar issue today where it said all of my purchases transferred and they didn't. After I did the File > Devices > Transfer Purchases, and Synced it, I realized I had to (phone connected to laptop via USB) go to the View tab in iTunes and select "All Music" and not "Only Music Available Offline". Then those songs showed up and I could download them from the cloud or whatever. Hope this helps other people who seem to have tried everything!

Oct 30, 2015 8:57 AM in response to ajal1

I was having exactly the same problem, and I tried all the many things people suggested (I restored the iPhone, reset network settings, tried using playlists, turned "show only music on this phone" on and off, etc). Finally I turned off Genius, and voila - everything works again as it should.

Feb 12, 2016 9:02 AM in response to ajal1

I have been having this problem for months now! And it is extremely frustrating. I have read thru pages and pages of this post and have tried change several of the setting options as suggested. I even tried deleting everything and starting from scratch! But I think I have found a simple solution.


I have a MacBook Pro running OS X El Capitan 10.11.1

an iPhone 6 running IOS 9.2.1

my music is set to allow me to manually manage it, but I was still having problems with select songs and artists.


Solution:

Turn off passcode on phone!

I have no idea why this worked but it did!

Why won't my songs transfer from itunes to my iphone?

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