Apple iTunes has been redesigned, and figuring out the new interface can be a bit daunting. Copying playlists to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod is a bit different depending on the version you are using. Here’s how it’s done.
iTunes 12 – Option 1
- Connect your device to the computer.
- Select the icon for your device, located at the upper-left portion of the screen.
- Select the “Music” option on the left pane.
- Ensure the “Sync Music” check-box is selected.
- In the “Playlists” section, check the playlists you wish to sync with your iOS device.
- Select “Sync” and your playlist should sync.
iTunes 12 – Option 2
- Connect your device to the computer.
- “Music Playlists” should be listed in the left pane. Select the playlist(s) you wish to sync, then drag them up to your device listed in the “Devices” section on the left pane. They will then sync to your device.
iTunes 11
- Connect your device to the computer. A button should appear for your device in the upper-right portion of the screen. Click it.
- Select Add To… This will make a contents menu available on the right side.
- Select “Playlists” at the top of the screen.
- Drag any playlist from the left side to the right side.
- Click “Done“, then select the “Sync” button in the lower right corner of the screen to sync your changes.
You have successfully transferred a playlist to your Apple device. If you liked the old way of doing things, you can always enable the left sidebar again.
I have downloaded the latest iTunes and connected my iPhone but the phone icon does not show on my computer !
Thank you, Mitch. This information helped. Relief!
My wife and I both have iPhones. I have set up home sharing so that she can access my music on her Mac. I can copy my playlists to my iPhone but can’t seem to find a way to get my playlists to her phone.
This is what worked for me:
After dragging a playlist to my iphone, the playlist showed up under that device in the sidebar. However, after syncing, the playlist did not show up in My Music on the phone.
In the sidebar, I ejected the iphone, disconnected it from my laptop, and closed iTunes.
I then reconnected my iphone to the laptop and opened iTunes. The playlist then synced to My Music.
The reason this may not work, I have found, is that my songs unbeknownst to me were in my cloud. If you check, some songs that you think you ‘own’ or have on your computer, for example, are actually only playing when you are online. They aren’t actually on your computer so you can’t transfer them. You can tell because there will be a little cloud icon with a down arrow suggesting it hasn’t been downloaded.
I just go ‘select all’ for my entire playlist of songs I “own” and on the menu bar use “Song > Download” and voila…they all start downloading. Now you can transfer them !
The latest iTunes 12 which is much better than before and it’s friendly to use now. Previously, I did’t like to use iTunes to backup and manage my data on my iPhone, and I would use the transfer tools or some 3rd party transfer like Dr.Fone and FonePaw iOS Transfer. They can help me to manage my files in a fast and simple way without iTunes. Of course, it can backup files for iPhone and iPad.
I realize and iPod is old technology but it still belongs to Apple. After an excruciating amount of time and effort I got the playlist I wanted transferred to my iPod at the cost of erasing the rest of the music. I know I can get it back but I’m done fooling with it for awhile.
When I hit sync I get a message saying are you sure you want to remove existing music eft from this phone and sync with iTunes library? Options are remove and sync or cancel. I don’t want to loose playlist off the phone. Don’t know why they disappeared out of my of iTunes library on my pc
Thank you Melissa. It all used to be so easy, and now, up til now, it is impossible. DOH
I have tried your suggestions and get the following message:
“The iPhone…. is synced with another iTunes library… Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library?”
I’ve got two degrees and getting iTunes to damn well work tested me! How can thousands of geniuses get things so badly wrong! – Thanks to your help I solved it (iTunes Help app was useless)
I have tried option 1 & 2 using iTunes 12 to iPhone SE 9.3.2 and I cannot play the transferred playlist on my phone. It shows up in My Music on my phone but there is no music to play.
Any suggestions? Thanks
Thank you for this information. I am all up for change and making things better, but after spending a stupid amount of time trying to get my playlist on my phone because some person at itunes decided to change things really pissed me off.