Near Duplicate Playlist is Created when Syncing with IPhone

Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - Apple Support

I just got off with Apple support, and used the directions in that link. Even if you find a duplicate that isn't in the playlist, delete it, then re-sync your iPod/ iPhone. It should remove the duplicate playlists.

I cleared my entire iPhone's music library with setting and manually deleting everything in Music

1. Delete the duplicate playlists in iTunes on your computer and mobile device

2. Go into Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage (not icloud) then find Music and delete the Data

3. Then go into the Music App and delete everything in My Music and Playlists

4. Sync again

It worked for me, I even deleted everything again and tried to sync. The duplicates were gone.

I have a iPhone 6s+ and iTunes ver 12.

I never had this problem before with my old 4s. It was recently stolen and I went the cheap route and bought a new 5s today and I was having this duplicate playlist issue. The play list was exactly the same number of songs and from what I could tell the content was the same. Deleting the "playlist-1" on the phone and iTunes seemed to work for my last sync.

I'm wondering what was causing the additional playlist to occur, and on a phone that hasn't even been used yet!

Issue still persisting a year later. No fix has been found. Between this, auto rating, and the poor changes that are continually being implemented I'm looking for alternatives to anything apple related. Anyone know of any good music platform software tied to a good mp3 device alternative? Seems like there would be a good market for it at this point.

I find that the duplicate playlists actually have fewer songs than the original. It looks like the issue is in iTunes, not in iOS.

Here's how I resolved it:

1. Delete the duplicate playlists in iTunes on my Mac. (You may not have to do this, because of step 7, but I haven't had this problem again yet to see if I can avoid this step.)
2. Delete the duplicate playlists on my iPod. (I am assuming this will work on iPhones as well.)
3. Connect my iPod to my computer and view it in iTunes on my Mac. Note that iTunes still sees those duplicate playlists.
4. Set iTunes to manually manage my music.
5. Delete the duplicate playlists on my iPod from iTunes.
6. Sync the iPod.
7. Uncheck the "Manually manage my music" checkbox again. iTunes will warn you that it will resync everything. Accept this, and let it do its thing.
8. Once it's done syncing, you should have a clean set of playlists again.

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing there's something wrong with the iTunes backup mechanism, that any time you change a playlist, it creates a backup copy of the old list in the backup, but somehow that copy becomes visible as "Playlist 1" etc.

3 years and counting. The same old bug and Apple has nothing to contribute. Lazy programmers and even lazier support personnel. All they're interested in is pushing the iCloud crap on everyone.

This worked perfectly for me. I had an awful list of playlist duplicates.

Thanks.

iPhone 6s+ iTunes 12.4 OS X 10.11.6

This didn't work for me, exactly, but it did help me to isolate at least one aspect of the bug.

I followed explicitbunny's directions. I cleared all the music on my phone through Settings as well as from the Music app. When I synced with my desktop, I ended up losing all my playlists on both devices because Apple software is a hot mess. Infuriating. Then I tried an experiment, based on the observation noted here that the duplicate playlist has fewer songs, and is in fact the previous version of the playlist you've added songs to. So I created a small playlist. Synced my phone. Added a few songs to the playlist and synced again -- another duplicate playlist. Darn!

BUT... I also noticed that an album (that I had bought through iTunes/Apple music) magically reappeared in the Music app on my phone, even though I had not selected it from my desktop. Weird. I deleted this from my phone and tried the experiment again. Still no success. Then I went ahead and deleted that album from iTunes on my *desktop* (figuring I could re-download it from the cloud at another time). BINGO!

Now, I'd had this duplication problem before I'd purchased this particular album, and found the only solution was to restore my phone, though even that "fix" was temporary. I'm reluctant to suggest that anyone go ahead and risk losing all their carefully collected playlists to corroborate my findings, but I am curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. In any case, the fact that iTunes wanted to put some "unselected" album in the Music on my iPhone seems to suggest that the root of the problem lies in iTunes rather than the iOS.

iPhone 6S+ // i Mac // OSX 10.11.6 // iTunes 12.4.3.1

Well, here we are in 2016 and I'm having the same problem. I have updated iTunes and my iPhone to the most recent versions available. Before ios10 on my iPhone, I could simply delete the duplicated playlists manually by swiping the playlist to the side and deleting it. I got so annoyed with having to do that that I stopped syncing. That is, till today when I was GOING to upgrade my phone to the new 7; however, I got stuck at home attempting to sync my phone and what a mistake that was. I now have at least three duplicates of playlists on my phone and computer. I tried deleting the playlists, not the songs, like I normally do, but now cannot. Perhaps it is a function I just cannot find on the phone, and if so, I'd appreciate anyone's advice, but I tried deleting a playlist and it deleted the songs to the Cloud instead, leaving the duplicated playlist intact. I have a feeling this is linked to another problem I've had for a year and a half, which is that every time I try to sync my iPhone, it tries to re-download from previous syncs, which it did again today before I could stop it. Excuse the long-winded response. I have been at this for hours.

Okay guys, I think I found a temporary fix for the latest update, 10.0.1. I am still not sure how to fix it on a computer, but on my iPhone, I went through the duplicate playlists and marked the version I wanted to keep as REAL. I then went to a different copy of the playlist and clicked on the upper right corner where it says, "Edit." I then clicked the red - sign that appears next to each song and deleted each song individually until they were all gone, then clicked "done" at the top right. It might take a moment, but that should delete the UNWANTED playlist on your phone. I repeated this step in each of the duplicates I didn't want, then went to my playlists marked REAL and took the REAL out of the tittle. It is tedious and a fix you'll likely have to do every time you choose to sync, but it cleans up your phone.

That's a lot of work for large playlists. What I believe is happening is if iTunes is in the middle of syncing and I disconnect the iPhone from the host computer, then the next time I connect and sync, all sorts of problems begin such as duplicate playlists and hanging while syncing contacts or calendars.

It's so finicky that I've have a ritual that I go thru before even plugging the phone into the host ... I restart the iPhone and reboot the host and then immediately load iTunes, plug in the phone, and sync. DO NOT edit any contacts or calendar events while that's happening and DO NOT tamper with playlist items. Let the sync run and hopefully complete.

As for duplicate playlists, my solution is, in iTunes, to export the 'good' playlist to an xml file and then delete both the good one and all the clones. Also, I deleted the same play lists from the iPhone using the "Music" app. Then I sync (after the rebooting phase I described above). No playlists anywhere at this point. Then I import the playlist back into iTunes and sync again. It's seems fine at that point.

I've had better success with that approach, but it's still flaky and randomly fails (or hangs) -- as expected. Apple is not the Apple of days gone by. Honestly, I'll never buy another iPhone even if my life depended on it! Android isn't much better but there is a far greater developer base than there is for IOS and so there are many more choices. I'm just putting in time until 1) my iPhone 5S blows up for the 2nd time from an expanding defective battery -- no warranty but discounted new phone -- or 2) IOS 11 comes out and they stop supporting iPhone 5S. It's just a matter of time before I blow this Popsicle stand!

Hey! So I decided to call Apple Support and we got it fixed! My first recommendation would be to check your storage available on the phone. Even if you have space on it, if there is not around 10% clear, I was told that it works less efficiently and can stop you mid-sync saying you don't have enough space on your phone. That's when the duplicates are created. it actually wasn't too bad clearing everything, just tedious. Had to clear several apps from my phone (not plugged in to computer) then go to My iPhone IN iTunes (plugged in) and deselect the playlists I didn't want, then sync. After, I went to my music (not under My iPhone section) and deleted the extra playlists there. Then I re-synced to make sure no more duplicates were created. I know that's a little confusing, but I've been on the phone with them for a few hours figuring this out and am wiped out. I highly recommend you call and get help if it is still an issue. I spoke with someone named Ryan who was excellent. Good luck, everybody!

I've tried all the suggestions, but thought since I was iphone newbie I was messing up. Looking at the messages from 2013 I see I'm not the only one having issues.

SMH I shouldn't have to be on the phone with tech support to fix this glitch

I too am having the same problem as the OP. I had previously attempted a solution which did not solve the problem. I am now attempting to remove duplicates by following the directions supplied in the link shared by JadeTiger. I'll report back my results.

At present I have the following issue after syncing my iPhone 6s+ in iTunes 12.5.3.17

Removing a duplicate song I knew was in the play list has not helped.. Here is the result after my recent sync after removing the duplicate song: