How to show lyrics in iOS 11. The lyrics disappeared.

After upgrading to an iPhone 8 Plus (updated to iOS 11.4), I found that I could no longer view lyrics in the Music app as I could on my previous iPhone 4S. I did a back up restore to my 8 Plus from a data back up for my 4S, which could possibly have had something to do with it, however, judging from other's comments, it seems unlikely though. I tried remedies others have tried, such as, clearing all songs from my devices, then doing a re-sync. This didn't resolve the issue. To note, I have manually added lyrics via iTunes and I do not have an Apple Music subscription.

With all that said, I discovered that after adding lyrics to a song previously not having them, then doing a sync, they were appearing as they should on my 8 Plus. This led me to wonder about lyrics having long previously been added to songs. So, I tried altering some lyrics by simply adding a carriage return to the end, then doing a sync. Voila! The lyrics appeared as they should.

I suspect that, at some point, possibly during some particular update, sync, or whatever, an iTunes data file was "altered" to read custom lyrics as not being present, even though the user interface said otherwise. By "updating" the lyrics, iTunes was apparently forced to recheck them, then update whatever necessary file was being read for syncs. I tried several additional syncs to see if the the lyrics remained, and they did.

Hope this helps others experiencing the same problem, but more importantly, helps Apple create a fix. Having to go through all your songs with lyrics in this manner to fix this when it happens is not a reasonable solution, particularly for those with large Libraries of songs with lyrics. Also, there is no way to create a custom/smart playlist to filter only songs with or without lyrics. Hopefully, we can get that feature added to iTunes in a future update soon.

It's in the history here, posted by ItzelGarcia. Here is his post again:

"Ok so you go to the music app as you normally do

Click on the album/artist you would like to listen to

tap and hold on the song you would like to play

A drop down menu should appear

and "Lyrics" button should show

tap on the lyrics button

and bam there you go

let me know if it worked for you"

I'm on Ios 11.2.5. Same case. My songs that have custom lyrics don't display "lyrics" button, either lyrics. To view custom lyrics songs, you have to force by clicking the song and lyrics option appears in the list. But I can't view them while the song is playing

100% agree. It was so intuitive - and now just got hidden somewhere deep inside the music app.

I would consider myself an intermediate to advanced user, but wasn‘t able to figure out myself the lyrics functionality under iOS 11.

I agree with you. It was better before. Frankly, I thought it was cool when all you had to do was tap the album artwork of the song that was currently playing and the lyrics appeared on top of the artwork. This new method of accessing lyrics is not user friendly.

Thank you. This does work well. But it's quite limited. Before iOS11, all of my songs' lyrics, which I'd manually put in, were available during playback. Not just each song that I had to select and hold. It's better than nothing, this work-around, but it's not a universal fix. I've spent hours with AppleCare folks on this, and here's the solution (?) they suggest I try:

"First thing we need to do is backup your iPhone. Make sure photos and other items are secured and backed up.

Once complete, you’ll then Restore the iPhone (erase/reinstall) then set it back up using the backup you just did. So restore it from either the iTunes backup or iCloud whichever you used.

Test…if the issue is resolved, then you’re done!

If the issue persists, we need to restore the device again in iTunes, but this time you’ll set it up as a new device..(do not restore from a backup) then test. If everything works, then sign into iCloud on the phone then test. Add your emails and text. Add your apps and test. This is to narrow down the culprit thats preventing the syncing."

I'm just not willing to try this now, as just one restore will take several hours, due to the number of photos, videos and songs, and I'm not receiving a lot of assurance that this will work. My hope is that apple will fix this sooner or later.

Thanks for sharing this, Steve.

Like you, I am not willing to try this restoring thing either. It seems too much work without a guarantee that it's going to work out. This is supposed to be a simple things for Apple to fix. Hopefully they'll come up with a permanent solution soon.

Thanks again.

sorry - doesn't work! there is no Lyrics button only - Delete from Library, Add to Playlist, Play Next, Play Later, Love/Dislike.

It was there previously, on that page. Where did it go? Why had apple removed that?? that annoying !

Fully agree. The world is advancing but Apple is taking many step back with this Lyrics thing, which in my view is never broken, so why change it and cause so many issues?

Very much prefer the old method where you can just scroll up the song to view the lyrics instead of having multiple steps.

What happened to the quality of User Experience???

When playing a song in Apple Music, press on the bar at the bottom of the screen that shows the currently playing song.

When the window opens up, swipe up a bit to show the lyrics button and press that.

If there's no lyrics button, there may not be lyrics available for that particular song.

Ok so you go to the music app as you normally do

Click on the album/artist you would like to listen to

tap and hold on the song you would like to play

A drop down menu should appear

and "Lyrics" button should show

tap on the lyrics button

and bam there you go

let me know if it worked for you 🙂

Same here. I cannot see the lyrics in my iphone, only on iTunes. No lyrics in the device. Same problem for about one year now. How long do we have to wait before someone fix this? Great job Apple!

isn't it possible de have the option directly while playing the song ?

Why Apple disable that option ?

not working for me - "lyrics" is not an option in dropdown from any songs i have - whether purchased thru iTunes or uploaded from my library

OMG, this was so helpful. I was struggling with the very same thing. Thank you!

Apple is so intuitive and should have made this aspect easy to find out too.

Best