Sync iPad Movies in list view

GaryFx wrote:

But if I click Movies under Settings ...

I cannot imagine where you are looking or referring to ...

"Settings" ... where? On your iPad? Isn't it called "Videos" there? And isn't it true that there is no setting related to what you are trying to do there? I don't believe there is any "Settings" area in iTunes on the Mac.

I understand your question now. Thank you for the clarification. It was very helpful.

Instead of trying to manage the movies by concentrating on your iPad device settings in iTunes, I suggest you concentrate on what you have in iTunes on your Mac and drive the iPad from there.

I suggest starting here. In iTunes on your Mac, regardless of whether your iPad is syncing or not, go here:

Then you can change the view to a list view as shown here if you wish by selecting "Movie List" in this dropdown from "Movies" shown on the right above:

Once you've downloaded all movies you wish to your Mac, then you can use "Movies" under "Settings" on your iPad's display in iTunes to pick which movies you sync from your Mac to your iPad.

Hi GaryFx, it sounds like you know what files you want. So in the Settings: Movies view, type the title in the search box in the upper right. The table view will filter accordingly.

If it helps, I know exactly what you are referring to.

To clarify, when syncing movie onto the iPad, you get the grid view only. This issue is that if you have a long movie title to program title you can not see the whole of the title. So if you are looking for selected episode you would have to use the search field. Equally if you didn't know the title of the episode then you can struggle if the meta data does not contain the episode number and the titles are listed Alphabetically.

Still, however, No answer to help.

Seems like the only way to remove a movie from a device is via the settings for the device under “Movies”. Deleting it from the device means iTunes will try and reinstall when I sync. iTunes won’t let me remove them from the “On My Device” list, even after I click “Edit Playlist”. Apparently “Edit” means “Add” in Apple-speak.

The search box method helps, but its a shame that you can’t just remove them from the “On My Device” list. I can delete them from my library, but not the device. If Apple would even give me a list view under “settings” instead of the icons, it would be easier. Better yet, a list with sort criteria, including what’s selected!

A million times yes...I don't know why I can see a list of movies under the "movie tab" in iTunes, but I HAVE to use grid view to choose the movies on my iPad or to uncheck a box on which movies is synced....

It would me immeasurably easier to sync and manage a library with over 300 movies in a household with many devices if when the device was plugged into the computer and the content was being managed that will be synced to the ipad that it was presented in a list view instead of a grid view.

I came back to see if any progress has been made on this and to add a comment and found that my comment from last year was still the most recent...I can't see how this is not a larger problem for other people...no where else on iTunes do you need a grid view to select or deselect what will sync to your iPad...the check boxes are tiny and searching through every title to find which movies you have synced is ridiculous....a list view would make this process infinitely more simple...come on apple, that is suppose to be what you are good at.

This issue drives me absolutely crazy. I frequently travel for work to areas without Internet and load up my iPad with youtube videos I have downloaded, sometimes upwards of 200 at a go to last me several weeks, and the grid view is absolutely useless.

The only way I have found to work around this works but means I am losing another area of functionality within iTunes when I do it.

In the grid view for the iPad I make sure there is nothing at all selected. I then go over to the Movies section where I have access to the most basic of UI functionality (apple!), the list view. I select all videos, right click and 'Mark as Watched'. I then clear the selection, and shift or ctrl click on the videos I want to be part of the upload. I then right click again and select 'Mark as UnWatched'. Back over to the useless grid Movies view for the iPad, check 'Sync Movies' and then in the lower drop down check and select 'Automatically include all unwatched'. It then uses what you did in the list view to determine which movies it will sync to the iPad.

It's not perfect by any means, and you lose the functionality of actually keeping track of how many times you have watched something, but it works and it is far better than having to search for individual titles for multiple movie uploads, especially when many of them are named very similarly.

This problem has plagued me for sooooo long. I can't believe that with all of Apple's engineers, not one of them thought this was a problem worth solving. It can't be that difficult. I appreciate SteveMQ's elegant, but "should be unnecessary" workaround with the watched/unwatched technique.

The other thing I can't stand, which is part of the same problem, is when I am looking at my iPad's Movie Sync screen (table) and it says I have 5 movies synced; why can't I choose a button to just have the synced movies fly to the top so I can see what they are. Noooo, I have to scroll through all my movies to see which ones are selected. Anyone know a trick that I haven't discovered to make that easier? (Yeah, I could look on my iPad and memorize them, but come on, that shouln't be necessary)

Thanks in advance for listening to the rant and any help that is forthcoming.

I just stumbled on this old thread as I was investigating a related problem. This problem annoys me greatly, Apple seems to be at war on list style views on all its devices and I suspect these problems will only become more widespread in the future, but for anyone still struggling I've found a fairly good workaround for now (currently itunes 12.5).

1: Whilst in itunes in the main "films" section, looking at your full list of movies in classic list view form, hit file>new>playlist (this is on Windows, maybe there's a slightly different menu on MacOS, but you know what I mean, you're creating a normal itunes playlist, just like you might for music. Maybe call it "films for ipad" or whatever you like.

2: drag and drop whatever movies you're gonna want to sync into this new playlist, just like you would making a music playlist.

3: Now with your ipad or iphone or whatever connected, go to the "films" section where you normally choose what you want to sync (with the horrible grid view that's causing the problem), ignore the big grid view, don't bother selecting from that. If you scroll down (the outer scrollbar at the edge of itunes window, not the one inside the films grid view), you'll see below the big grid view, a little box called "include films from playlists". So tick the playlist here that you just created in step 1, and all the stuff you put in there will be sync'd to your device in one go.

From now on, just maintain and update that playlist as you like, and it will always sync up to date each time you connect your device.

Hope this helps - at least until Apple mess up that functionality too.

If anyone from Apple monitors this site, I'd like to add my displeasure with the UI experts who fill screens with meaningless icons in grid view while truncating detailed title information we need to manage content. I originally migrated to Apple from generic mp3 players because of the buggy file management software that came with those devices. I've learned since that Apple software is little better -- more stable but not at all user friendly or functional. The designs are dumbed down and seem more invested in integrating the user with sales opportunities via the Apple store. Very disappointed!