iTunes 12.5 keeps syncing same songs

JackPanama is right: the new "work" tag for classical music is the culprit. It is automatically filled with any "grouping" tag the track has whenever the track information is edited (or when the track is first imported). Even if you simply changed the track's star rating on your phone or something. After that, for some unclear reason, all tracks with a "work" tag are synced over to your phone every time.

Based on that information, here's the quickest remedy:

1. In the full list of tracks (viewing Library... Songs), right-click the bar with column headers and add the column "Work"
2. Click on the new Work column header to sort your library by that name. When you scroll all the way up, you may notice that the tracks with a non-empty "work" field are the same tracks that keep syncing. Select those tracks (click on the first one, and while holding Shift, click on the last one)
3. Right-click and select "Info" (or use ⌘I)
4. In the "Details" pane, select "Use work and movement" at the top
5. Enter the "Work" field and make sure it's empty (perhaps hit Delete)
6. Deselect "Use work and movement" at the top
7. Click OK

That should do it. If you want to eradicate the problem forever, you must add the "grouping" column instead at step 1, and do this procedure on everything with a non-empty grouping.

I’ve been having the same problem. I didn’t really pay much attention as I’ve recently added some new songs to my iTunes library in the past few months. However, I did catch that the SAME 228 songs keep syncing to my iPhone every time I plug it in. These sames 228 songs sync even when nothing has changed. It says copying ‘xxxx’ song …. for 228 times. The display scrolls past too fast to read and there doesn’t seem to be a log file to look at so can’t actually find all the 228 songs. I took a screen shot as proof.

I’m not on with Apple support and arguing with them as they are saying that is correct behavior. I wrote “plug in iPhone 7 to my mac, sync the same 228 songs, unplug iPhone 7 and plug it back in and it sync the same 228 songs again, the same 228 songs keep synching and NOTHING has changed”

The Apple support analyst writes (and I quote): “Yes, it’s designed to sync every time you plug it in”

I asked to be transferred to a senior analyst. Then the senior analyst says roughly the same thing. I sent the link to this thread and said ‘read it’.

And guess what, now the senior analyst wants me to wipe my iPhone and resync it from scratch (I have 9,025 song and the same 228 songs keep resyncing/copying to my iPhone).

that's crazy advice from apple support - giessen and jackpanama messages have the solution - the resync issue had me stumped and seemed to be related to software updates - i wonder if the problem will reoccur next update - i have a hunch it might - good luck marcemarcsf .

Maybe 1 year later is no use, but iTunes 12.7 is still doing the same. I found a strange solution: I put SOME of the resynced songs in a playlist, and for SOME of them I reset the number of plays, and voilà, the next time I synced, it did not resynced ANY of the previously resynced songs.

Hope it helps.

Rgds,

Aldo

THANK YOU JackPanama! I have been wrestling with this problem for about a year and a half. Every time I synced my iPhone, it would recopy almost 2,300 files. I spent countless hours on the phone with Apple Support, and they escalated the problem to a developer. After many emails and phone calls with a case ID, they claimed they "now knew what it was", and would fix it in an iTunes update. That was over 10 months ago. Nothing they ever suggested to try worked, and no fix ever came through an update. However, your fix was it! Perfect! I don't think they even now know about this. So, I tip my hat to you.

Open iTunes, Preferences, Devices and make sure "Prevent iPods....." is checked.

See iTunes Keeps Syncing

The latest is that perhaps it is the new "Custom Lyrics" that is causing this.

We're getting closer. I tried playing a few songs, and it did reduce the number being resynced.

I tried something else. I picked a group that I knew had some songs being recynced (hard to see those names flashing by), selected the group, right-clicked and pick RESET PLAYS. That, too, seemed to work, so I went back and selected ALL my songs and reset the plays on everything.

The GOOD news: It reduced my resynces from 228 to 31. The BAD news is, of course, it didn't eliminate all of them.

But maybe this can help someone else.

Whew! FINALLY got things back to normal. 😐

Thankfully, I recently got a program which enables me to take videos of my Windows programs. That, along with PowerDVD which allows me to zoom in on the video and to step forward a frame at a time, I identified the last 25 songs being re-synced.

BUT, after "playing" those 25 songs, I was still left with 3. Tried several times, nothing. Went into Windows File Explorer, checked the file properties, everything normal.

So I UNchecked those three songs, synced the library, REchecked the songs, and now they, too, dropped out of re-syncing.

I just hope this doesn't raise its head again.

PS - I noticed something while doing all this the last few days. So far I have found 3 song with the wrong lyrics in them. I know I didn't do that. Has me worried.

Oh, great. Now my photo albums are missing.