How long does it take to sync music to apple watch

Hi, I had the same issue. The watch needs to be on its charger for playlist to sync to the warch. I did this and it worked 🙂

I have had my Watch plugged in overnight when I started the process; the Apple Watch app still indicates "Sync pending..." after 8 hours.

The About page shows zero songs on local storage as well ):

Have tried restarting both devices and ensured they are paired / connected as making other changes like rearranging the "home screen" updates very quickly.

I have the same problem. Perhaps it's the type of song? I tried .m4b audiobooks, created in iTunes from .mp3 (i.e. not protected).

I managed to resolve the problem by "unpairing" my phone and Watch. Time consuming, but it's syncing now...

It did show I had a backup of the Watch, but I did not initiate a backup in any way, so your mileage may vary.

Unpair by going into the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, Apple Watch, then there should be an Unpair option in red text.

I also had this problem. It shows Sync Pending... And when you tap a different row in the playlists, that text moves to that row but there is no clear progress.

Eekz is corrected that the iPhone and the Watch must both be plugged in and charging in order to perform the sync.

I missed that they needed to both be charging so I did the the unpair action as Eekz suggested.

Unpairing is a serious operation and there are no confirmations of the choice. This will completely wipe the watch!

Here's what to expect if you unpair a Watch:

1. see a spinner for 1-2 minutes
2. See a round progress meter for 1-2 minutes
3. see apple logo as watch boots up
4. see yet another round progress meter for 1-2 minutes
5. apple logo again
6. watch setup. You can then backup from your iphone (mine dated the moment before I chose to unpair), set new pincode, enter iTunes password.
7. Restore from backup with round progress meter for several minutes.

After completing the backup procedure, I went back into Music settings in the Watch iPhone app and it still said Sync Pending. I tapped another row, and then tapped back on that playlist and Boom it changed to Syncing...

It appears my watch face choice did not get restored from the backup. Also my watch apps did not come back from my iPhone.

I do not know at this point if I needed to unpair. But I sort of wish I had not as it was a much bigger procedure than I realized.

try this - it worked for me - disconnect the watch from the charger - power down the watch - switch it on - put it on the charger - it should start to sync

it is slow - 11 songs took around 5 Minutes

I had a sync pending message, just took my watch off and put it on the charger and it immediately started syncing. Taking a while, been 20m and it's at 61%...

Is your playlist greater than 1GB? If so, change storage to 2GB. Mine was sitting at Sync pending, but was slightly over 1GB. I changed storage limit and viola.

This fix worked for me, I didn't need to unpair my wifes Apple watch I just restarted it, connected the iPhone to power and then the apple watch and bingo it started syncing - albeit it took time, hence if you planning on syncing a few songs do it when you're sleeping.

Having the same issue. Testing bernd24's troubleshooting suggestions. Are we supposed to see anything next to the name of the playlist other than, "Syncing..."?

Had the same issue. Used bernd24's troubleshooting suggestions. Was not sure if we were supposed to see anything next to the name of the playlist other than, "Syncing...", but after utilizing bernd24's steps, I was able to see a percent next to "Syncing" appear next to the name of the playlist.

This feature obviously needs more work there, Apple Developer. Please make a note of it.

"This feature obviously needs more work there, Apple Developer. Please make a note of it."

Agreed! While the syncing process is moving along it's taking a really, really long time to sync 13 songs. My worries started when I saw at 1% for what seemed like 2 to 3 minutes. It eventually bumped up to 8 and even after about 5 minutes it's only at about 31% (and has been stuck there since I started typing).

I try not to take for granted the technology we're blessed and privileged to have access to -- it just jumped to 38% -- but if Apple knew that it was going to take this long for music -- 46% -- to sync music they should've just left it alone until the process could be faster then enabled it in an update.

Oh well. The fact that I can control Spotify (well, just pause, rewind and forward) from Watch is probably good enough -- 54% -- for my needs so I can't imagine I'll be syncing much after this. And I definitely won't do it when I'm about leave for work in the morning.

62%

2 song playlist and just sitting there plugged to power...did the re-pair, and still no go.

And then my Mac told me low power on USB and to replug phone.

The moment I did, the sync started!

So best to toggle phone power if sync static.

Super slow as well.

OK, for anyone who has this issue and Googles it I fixed my issue. Rebooting the iPhone or Watch, whether on the charger or not, did nothing to fix this issue for me and my playlists on Watch were only displaying partial song lists. What I had to do was unpair the Watch from my iPhone and then restore the Watch from a previous back-up. Once I did that, the playlists started to slowly organize and within 15-20 minutes they were 100% matching my Phone! So it appears unpairing & restoring was the solution (at least for me).

I can verify that unpairing then pairing and restoring from back-up did the trick. I too restarted and fussed with it before the unpair/pair trick.