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Fusion Factor Author

Level 2

212 points

Syncing music creates duplicate "1" Playlist

Every time I want to sync my new songs onto my phone, iTunes imports the old playlist back from my iPhone. All I want is for iTunes to update my playlist. I don't need the old version reimported back from my phone. Any idea how to prevent this?

Example:

I have 1,000 songs in #Mark's Songs
After I purchase 10 more songs, #Mark's Songs now has 1,010 songs.
iTunes syncs with my iPhone and updates #Mark's Songs with the 10 songs
But it also leaves behind a duplicate #Mark's Songs 1 which has the original 1,000 songs.

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12), iTunes 12.5.1.21

Posted on Oct 15, 2016 12:14 AM

Best reply

jmnpc2009

Level 1

13 points

Posted on Jun 10, 2017 4:10 AM

None of this has helped at all. I think we can all agree iTunes and Apple music have become a complicated s***show! I've got duplicate albums, duplicate songs, duplicate songs within albums, a playlist that's duplicated itself 3 times. What a f***in mess!!! Syncing used to be so easy. Now Apple's totally lost control of it, and it's become a tangled clusterf**k!

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55 replies

Fusion Factor Author

Level 2

212 points

Oct 16, 2016 11:09 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Thanks for the ideas, Kenichi.

My music is set to sync Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres. I am able to get rid of the "1" playlist by deleting it from my Mac and iPhone, but it's a nuisance to have to sync twice. I should only have to sync 1x to get the playlists reconciled.

iTunes should be push my updated playlists from my Mac to my iPhone. But after updating the songs, iTunes also saves a copy of the OLD playlist from the iPhone (labeling it with a "1" at the end).

I just want the Mac and iPhone to reconcile... not be left with 2 copies of the same playlist (1 old and 1 new).

Oct 17, 2016 1:24 AM in response to Fusion Factor

If you did as I suggested, and removed the affected playlists from syncing, and that did not help, the next thing to try is to completely turn OFF automatic syncing for Music. Go to iPhone's Music settings screen in iTunes, uncheck Sync Music, and Apply. This should remove ALL songs from iPhone.

Use iPhone to confirm it no longer has any songs (or playlists) synced from your Mac. Go to iPhone's onboard Settings screen

Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Manage Storage (under Storage) -> Music

If you find any song files still stored on iPhone, remove them from there.

Then, connect iPhone to Mac. In iTunes, set it up to Sync Music again, like before. Since those "duplicated" playlists were not on iPhone before you set up syncing again, the discrepancy should be resolved.

coaster

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2017 7:15 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

What he is mentioning used to take about 2 minutes. If you have a 3000 song playlist, what you are mentioning takes about 20 minutes. Why can we no longer adjust just a few songs?

Jun 8, 2017 5:56 AM in response to Fusion Factor

Make sure the device you are syncing to does NOT have iCloud sharing turned on. Otherwise, it gets confused as to whether to sync from cord attached to computer or iCloud. Thus, the extra list.

Blade_27

Level 1

22 points

Jul 23, 2017 8:46 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Thanks this has finally seemed to solve my issue. Still looks like I have 2 songs left as duplicates but then again it's down from the 400 I haven't been able to get rid of.

Garthaak

Level 1

21 points

Jan 1, 2018 8:43 PM in response to dodsonmd00

that did the trick for me, and this has been a PITA for years! Just kill itunes on the iphone before syncing!! Seems so easy, not sure why I didn't think of that before.