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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

Mar 3, 2014 12:21 PM in response to ajal1

There are 9 pages of this so this solution may have already been said. Now that iTunes doesn't let you edit music on your iPhone I deleted all my Radiohead so I could readd it with the album artwork but when I tried dragging it to my phone just like I usually did, nothing happened. The only solution I have found, it is incredibly stupid that you have to do this, is to change something in the info. For me it was as simple as adding "Radiohead" to the album artist section. My girlfriend had to change "The Killers" to "The Killer" in the Artist section. I don't know if it is exclusive to changing one of those two categories or if you could change something as simple as genre. If having the wrong Artist name bothers you, try changing it back later and see if that works.

Mar 3, 2014 10:20 PM in response to TheSeabiscut

Looks like many users have started encountering problems after switching to iOS 7, but not all of them. I already had that kind of issue, but I have hundreds of songs on my iPhone, so renaming them all wasn't an option.


Until Apple finds a real solution to this problem, we'll have to jump from one workaround to the next. I wish there was another way to backup and sync my phone without using iTunes...

Mar 4, 2014 8:52 PM in response to sahasz

This sync issue is nuts! I just upgraded my iTunes to the most recent version and still no resolve with the sync issues I was having either. From what I can tell, if I buy music from the iTunes store, those songs seem to sync. If I import a CD or copy a song from say Youtube and bring it into my iTunes library, those songs will NOT sync. Prior to updating iTunes or iOS 7 on my phone, I could do what I cannot do for years now. I can clearly see the songs listed in my iTunes library, hook my phone up to the computer via the USB cable and go through the entire sync process and look at my phone when its completed and no changes have been made with songs I manually added to my library.


I wish there was a way you could manually add songs to your phone instead of having to do a sync.


Also to those that say iTunes is telling you, you don't have enough space on your phone. One common thing to keep in mind to free up space is to delete your text messages! I recently deleted text messages for one of my contacts and believe it or not, it freed up about 4.5gb of space on my phone!


I have an old iPod Touch without a camera and its using OSX 5.1.1. I tried to update to the most recent OSX but it keeps saying its up to date. Well anyway, I am going to try and use that and see if that will sync and have my imported music show up on that device.

Mar 6, 2014 4:12 PM in response to ajal1

I have tried almost everyhting in this post! It was bothering me for many days now.
Most of my music was from BandCamp, Cd's and iTunes. Noting would show but some of the Bandcamp and all of my Purchased from iTunes. I had so much difficulty with this! :-(
Unti today. I found that if you click on your iPhone and it takes you to the summary page. From there you go to the tab that says "Music" you click on the Sync Music Button. It will wanr you that all your music is going to be deleted from the device. As soon as that takes affect and it shows that all your music is still on your device, you turn the device off for 20 secs or so and then you turn it back on. You look in your device to see if your music is still there. It is ok to see that your purchased music is there as long as nothing else is. Your phone should still be plugged in. You click on your summary page and you scroll down to Manually Manage Music & Videos. You click over on your library -- If you have a mac you do Command + A, if you have a Windows you do Ctrl + A -- and you select your music and drag it over to your device. All of your music should be on your device. Sounds like quite a bit of work but all you fustation will leave. :-) I hope that this helps someone. 😀

Mar 6, 2014 6:05 PM in response to GasparVences

I have a iPhone 5S with passcode and finger ID set and an iPad Air on which I hadn't originally turned on the passcode option. All my music went to the iPad without issue but a lot of newer stuff on the iPhone was greyed out with a red circle with a small square at the side. (A red version of the icon you see when downloading apps). I clicked and unclicked on the Manage Music manually and then synch'd. This took most of my music into the black hole. I then turned off the passcode, made sure the Sync Music Automatically option was selected then synched again. Bingo! All my music was returned and operational. BTW I use a PC with Windows 8.1

Mar 7, 2014 8:59 AM in response to ajal1

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!! I got my music onto my iPhone!


I tried a bunch of the same things everyone has been posting excluding wiping my phone clean and restoring my library on my phone.


I have some software called Phone View which allows me to save text messages in PDF form or other stuff from my phone and save it on my computer. It will also allow you to copy stuff to the phone as well. I tried to send music that would not sync the normal way and it clearly copied it to my phone or so I thought. I checked my phone and the songs were no where to be found! I clearly saw the blue bar saying Copying to iPhone go all the way over to the right until it finished copying.


Then I went back to iTunes and highlighted the songs I wanted on my phone and clicked and dragged them over to the right side of the iTunes window. You will see a sidebar screen come up with the name of your iPhone listed. I manually dragged the songs and dropped them on the name of my iPhone. I have it set up to sync over WiFi. The sync icon started spinning around both on the computer screen and on my phone.


During this sync process I was working on something else and had to reboot my computer right in the middle of the syncing. I just killed it. Rebooted my computer. I then opened my Music on phone and checked my playlists and what do you know the songs were there. I was able to sync them manually over WiFi.


I just hope I remembered what i did. I am going to try it a few more times to make sure I know what I am doing because I was trying just about everything to get it to work and Apple doesn't sound like they are really trying to resolve the issue!

Mar 8, 2014 2:58 AM in response to DVX100Shooter

Well I'm back in the "dog house" smh! Yes I got my songs onto my phone that wasn't syncing on its own but now I have a new problem! There are missing songs from playlists on my phone and on my computer! All missing songs were purchased in the iTunes music store too.


Everytime I do a sync, iTunes says it's backing up my phone. Where can I find those backups on my computer? I located the folder with previous iTunes libraries but it's not showing anything from 2014. I'm thinking I need to resort back to an old backup and load that up to get all my songs back in my playlists like I had them. A lot of my missing songs are greyed out with a dotted line circle next to them. Also for only one of my playlists, it automatically created a duplicate playlist but put a number 1 after it. I have no idea what the heck is going on and I don't think Apple does either.

Mar 14, 2014 8:13 PM in response to ajal1

I figured it out guys!


Go to you IDevice, then to the music library. Ok? Next, look at the bottome of your screen. There you'll see Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, MORE. Click on the "more". Then you will want to select "shared" it is a little house with a music symbol in it. After that, select "(your name) Library". BOOM! Your songs are in your library. Now... if you share an itunes and got some songs into your library that you don't want there. Just select the name of your device. For example, the name of my device is "Garret's 5th gen". I just reselected that after selecting Garret's Library. Now the music that was on there that i didn't want when i selected Garret's Library is now off. BUT the music that was glitching is NOW / STILL on my device. Hope this helped eveyone out.

Mar 15, 2014 2:55 PM in response to DVX100Shooter

Hi,

I have had the same issue. not being able to add individual songs, unless i did complete restore.

this was on ios6, and ios7.

This is my solution.

Total of 4 Steps

Step 1 - (this portion only needs to be done once.) go to the bottom right in itunes, open settings, drag scroll bar to a few hundred megs, and select box choose items randomly., click ok.

Step 2 - drag the songs you would like to sink up to, into your Music library ( on the left hand collum, Directly over the Music Library .

Step 3 - Choose your library in Autofill forms ( in my case its the default; Music)

Step 4- press Autofill , you will see the syncing icon go from grey to black next to each song.

it worked for me


As for Where your back up's are. I would assume it is in your itunes media folder location. ( that is where mine are)

Ussually in \user\ mydocuments\music\itunes, in there you will find your apps, music, etcs


Note: i deAuthorized all itunes licenses on various computers, . i had six licenses. max licenses allowed by apple is five. I authorized my itunes on my windows8.1 pc. wether this step had any effect or not; i do not know.


Cheers🙂


Marc

Mar 16, 2014 1:23 AM in response to cabro4



APPLE, STOP THE MADNESS and FIX THIS.! No one should have to put up with this garbage.


I couldn't agree more! It seems most of us started having issues syncing our music after switching to iOS 7 and the latest version of iTunes, so one or more features in both codes must be the reason we're having so many problems, and so many different solutions to them.

Mar 22, 2014 8:19 AM in response to ajal1

GUYS!

I fixed this by doing the following;

1. Plug you phone/ipod onto your laptop

2. Hard shut down your device (press home and lock button at the same time until apple logo appears)

3. Make sure you dont plug your device out

4. Wait for it to reappear on itunes

5. Your songs should start downloading on themselves


You're welcome 🙂

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

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