Playlist not showing up after iOS 8.1 update.

I couldn't take it any more, Apple "Geniuses" are NOT! Finally just went and bought "AnyTrans" app for $41, works super fast and easy!

After updating to iTunes 12 (what a disaster!), My iPhone 6 would not sync the selected playlists on my mac. I used to subscribe to iTunes match which was also a disaster so I terminated that last year. The only thing that worked was manually deleting all the songs and playlists by pressing "clear" at the top on my iPhone and then actually removing the playlist title by swiping to the left and pressing the red "delete" so that there are no playlist titles. It's not enough that the playlists are empty of songs, there should be no remnant, not even the title! I then went to the playlists under the iPhone settings (on the mac) and unselected the "sync music" and all playlists, songs, albums, genres, artists, etc. I then pressed apply/sync. Once my iPhone was clear of any and all music, I then went back and selected "sync music" under the iPhone settings on my mac and also selected the playlists of my choice from scratch and pressed "apply" to sync again...Voila! It took some time but I now have the playlists I wanted. No more cloud icons next to the songs. By the way, "show all music and videos" under my iPhone's iTunes and App Store Settings were all selected "On". I have owned macs since 1986 (mac 512K) till now and I have to say that the software now (especially iTunes) is the buggiest ever and has gone downhill.

I used this method and it appears to have restored some control by me, the poor sod who bought all these Apple products. I am reloading one playlist at a time and everything is showing up, contrary to the condition that emerged after the last iPhone update. At this point the only advantage I can see to Mac/Apple over Microsoft is the substantially lower number of virus/spyware aimed at Mac products.

As others have noted already, the seamless nature of Apple products seen in prior years is long gone.

Thanks to all prior posters for their advice.

This did not work for me. I am not subscribed to iTunes match and it is turned off on my device. when I sync my device to my computer it says it is there and yet my device does not display it.

Any other ideas??

same here, never had itunes match. could really use a solution, i use playlists daily

only lost the playlists last week sometime, maybe since upgrading to yosemite but can't figure out what has changed

So glad I found this gem because I followed the other advice and then my storage was full. I did your fix with eyes shut tight, but it WORKED! This has been plagueing me for HOURS so I am really grateful for your insight.

I've never subscribed to iTunes Match, and It's not turned on on my phone. I just updated to iOS 8.2, and all my music except for what's purchased through iTunes is gone from my phone. When I plug my phone into my computer, it shows the playlists and the songs are still on there according to iTunes, but they don't appear on the phone itself.

YUP, that's the problem I've been having. And someone in a thread that I started said that he experienced the same thing to the point where he called Apple Tech Support and the dude told him it "Was a known issue", yet they haven't found away to fix it yet. I honestly think they haven't even tried.

Someone else assumed that they were trying to find a way to get us to buy more music off of iTunes but that's a stupid way to corner the market, isn't it? More than half of all the iPhone and iPad and iPod users in the world put music on their devices that they had already bought on CD and ripped onto their computer. Who'd be so stupid to buy music they already have? That's so dumb. If apple is going to do this and try to run a fast one by us, more people will start realizing that slowly and by the time enough do and make a threat to never buy apple products again, THEN they will maybe start trying to fix it. Cuz I heard about what's coming in the iOS 8.3 update and NONE of the "fixes" include this problem.

I had everything just fine until about 3 weeks ago when this started happening. And I'm not even subscribed to itunes match!

I finally got my iTunes playlists to show up on my iPhone 6 by going into iTunes, selecting "... More" in the icon list at the bottom, selecting Shared, and selecting the Library option rather than the iPhone option. I was not subscribed to Match and I had turned Show All off, although I'm not sure if either of those things had anything to do with it.

I do subscribe to iTunes Match (I love it). My playlist changes weren't showing up.

I solved it by selecting the settings icon on my iPhone, then select iTunes & App Store. My iTunes Match was mysteriously turned off. I just turned it back on and everything is back to normal.

Make sure that "Manually Manage Music & Videos" is checked.

That solved it for me in two clicks.