How do I copy music onto my Apple iPhone from iTunes?

I'm stumped. With my iPod I simply drag and drop the music I want to take with me from my library onto the iPod on the left side of iTunes, but my Apple iPhone doesn't allow me to do that. How the heck do I put songs on the iPhone without synchronizing my entire (massive) music library?

Dave's Answer:

As with much to do with the iPhone, there's a bit of a trick to getting this working smoothly so you can have control over your iPhone music, while keeping it as darn easy to work with as possible. The answer? Create a custom playlist for your iPhone music library.

Let me show you how to do it - it's pretty darn easy.

Pop into iTunes and choose File --> New Playlist. Now rename it to something logical: I use "iPhone Sync":

Apple iTunes in Mac OS X: New Playlist for iPhone

Now you can just drag and drop music from your iTunes library (in iTunes, needless to say) into this new playlist. When you're ready, you'll see a bunch of music happily ensconced in the playlist (remember, it's all just "pointers": the actual music files are still safely in the main music library, so if you delete something from a playlist , you haven't deleted the original music file itself):

Notice here on the very bottom of the iTunes window it shows you how many songs are in the playlist, along with the size and total playing time. For my current playlist, it's 140 songs, 10.1 hours, for a total file size of 851MB, no problem for my 4GB Apple iPhone.

At this point, you need to plug in your iPhone if you haven't already done so. It'll pop up the usual summary screen:

Cool. Now click on the "Music" tab and you'll see that you can select "sync playlist". Do that, then select the new iPhone sync playlist you've created, as shown here:

Apple iTunes in Mac OS X: Synchronizing New Playlist with iPhone

Set things up just as I have shown and that's all there is to it. Now click "Sync" in iTunes and it'll synchronize your playlist with the iPhone music library and next time you click on that ole' "iPod" button on the iPhone, your selections from you music library will be present.

Oh, and one really nice feature of creating this playlist is that you can manage it, adding and deleting songs to your heart's desire, even without your iPhone present. Whatever changes you make are instantly applied to your iPhone music library the very next time you synchronize the device. Suddenly even 8GB might feel small. :-)

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Categorized: Mac OS X Help , iPhone and Cell Phone Help (Article 7470, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: apple iphone, apple itunes, mac os x
Previous: How do I download photos to my Apple iPhone?
Next: Why can't I watch a movie I just bought in iTunes?

Reader Comments To Date: 646

Lee said, on January 21, 2012 11:42 AM:

Thank you Dave. I was getting so frustrated with trying to copy my music. The guy at Verizon had to reset my Iphone but he didn't copy my music back on to it and for the life of me I couldnt figure out how to transfer my songs! You Rock Dave!

BTW I grew up with a David Taylor in southern Georgia, that wouldn't happen to be you would it?

Thanks again,
Lee

Dave Taylor said, on January 21, 2012 10:33 PM:

Lee, glad my site's helpful. I didn't grow up in Georgia, though I really like the parts of the state I've experienced!

Mel said, on January 22, 2012 10:35 AM:

Hi Dave. Ive followed your instructions and ticked the "selected playlists, etc"...but my (very large) "Entire Music Library" has been wiped off my phone, including several playlists that took me hours to create:( How do I avoid this again??? As I regularly update my music collection. Cheers Mel

Lynda said, on January 22, 2012 2:32 PM:

I just wanted to say thank you, I followed your directions made a couple of mistakes but have been able to make play lists and move them on to my iphone.
Thank you again.

Omar said, on January 24, 2012 8:45 PM:

MAAAAAN! You're a genius! Thanks a lot... Really usefull!

Carol said, on January 25, 2012 1:56 PM:

Store loaded ipod/itunes to iphone 4G. Now, I have no music on ipod. Tried to sync using instructions & says it is downloading the music and still no music on ipod.

DMC said, on January 26, 2012 2:35 AM:

Is there a way to do this without syncing? I
've got music on my work iTunes which I want on my phone, but don't want to sync my phone and lose what's already on it. This seems a pretty backwards way of doing things if you have to have a workaround.

Lynn said, on January 31, 2012 9:40 AM:

When I do this procedure, at the end it says "an iphone can be synced with only one itunes library at a time. erasing and syncing replaces the contents of this iphone with the contents of this itunes library"

So if I erase and sync.. will it erase everything on my iphone.. all apps,contacts, all stuff?

Is there a way to just get the music on there without anything happening to the iphone?

Monica said, on February 6, 2012 8:50 AM:

Thank you so much for this step by step!!! I finally got music onto my new iphone!

cassie said, on February 8, 2012 6:26 AM:

I found this very helpful. I'm new to all this I Tune and I Phone malarky and the step by step approach plus illustrations is excellent. Thank you.

Sherry said, on February 10, 2012 6:05 PM:

Finally....a solution. I tried everything for weeks but nothing would copy my music to my new 4S. I was so mad I was ready to throw everything out of the window. I researched and tried every work around or fix posted on forums. Nothing worked until I tried this fix by Dave Taylor. OMG what a relief. I'm no newbie or PC dunce but nothing would get my files onto that damn Iphone 4S. Thank you.....I hope people post this fix all over the net for other frustrated Iphone/Ipod/Ipad owners.

Simon MCILGREW said, on February 11, 2012 1:41 AM:

Thanks for the info but... when I get to the music page everything is grey and if I click on syn it tells me that I will loose everything which is already on my iphone. Is the iphone connected properly to my mac?

Nicole said, on February 13, 2012 3:17 PM:

Thank you so much for your step by step directions! Now I'll be able to listen to all my favorite music on my iphone!!!

THANKS!! -Nicole

Betty said, on February 14, 2012 6:56 PM:

It worked the first time but now I just want to sync to that playlist to add new music to the playlist and my iphone and says I cannot - does not give me the option to only choose the playlist. Says it will delete all music and will only synch my entire playlist. Any suggestions?

Virendra said, on February 15, 2012 10:42 AM:

I have a Iphone 3G. I have created a new list of songs to copy, but when I connect my phone no summary list appears.

Only notation I see on top that sync is complete, but when I go to Ipod no such list appears

toya said, on February 17, 2012 2:45 PM:

omg this is the perfect info i love it, it works perfectly fine... thank.

Kylie said, on February 18, 2012 4:33 AM:

Thanks heaps for this! Just got my new baby iPhone and linked my two apples (big and small) together. Very HaPpY :)

HateITunes said, on February 20, 2012 5:57 PM:

I cant believe this, This good man has given step by step instructions which do work and no-one seems able to follow them, you would think by default Itunes would sync stoopid software

Mahwush said, on February 21, 2012 11:51 AM:

Neat! got done. Thank you :)

Peter said, on February 21, 2012 10:50 PM:

You are a legend Dave T.

I hate these new phones ....but love em. Gotta have em but the lead time into making them work for me is harder every time I buy one.
Saved again.

spooky said, on February 23, 2012 3:42 PM:

great! worked fine! thanks a lot!

Ana said, on February 29, 2012 8:54 AM:

Thanks for your help!!!

tam said, on March 2, 2012 2:20 PM:

Worked great on my iPhone 4. Thanks!!!!

Alex S. said, on March 2, 2012 3:24 PM:

This is awesome I Hate Iphones and my wife had to buy one
Android rules

Derek said, on March 2, 2012 6:05 PM:

Hi Dave,

I have an iPhone 3g and I'm having troubles putting music on from any computer except my girlfriend's laptop. I've authorized my other computer with iTunes but no luck. I've tried clicking the "manually manage music" button but when I say "apply" it asks me if I want to delete all the music and sync to the iTunes library. This doesn't seem right seeing as how I'm telling it that I will manage it myself. Any help on this is much appreciated. (I've even tried de-authorizing the laptop but that didn't help either. Not sure if that even has anything to do with the issue or not...)

Anyway, thanks for any help.

Derek

Derek said, on March 2, 2012 6:31 PM:

Hi Dave,

I have an iPhone 3g and I'm having troubles putting music on from any computer except my girlfriend's laptop. I've authorized my other computer with iTunes but no luck. I've tried clicking the "manually manage music" button but when I say "apply" it asks me if I want to delete all the music and sync to the iTunes library. This doesn't seem right seeing as how I'm telling it that I will manage it myself. Any help on this is much appreciated. (I've even tried de-authorizing the laptop but that didn't help either. Not sure if that even has anything to do with the issue or not...)

Anyway, thanks for any help.

Derek

pawel said, on March 4, 2012 12:59 AM:

to everyone who couldnt create new playlist!! I had the same problem so when i clicked on folder e.g MUSIC then FILE system will allow you ten to create folder......

David G said, on March 5, 2012 1:25 PM:

I'm supposed to be pretty smart, a techie since DOS 1.0 and AppleII. After that...

I'm the original smart phone user, I mean going way back to hyper expensive tech in the 90's.

Have owned, used and enjoyed my Iphone for most of a year. Finally getting around to moving some music onto it ... was surprised by the fact that I couldn't just figure it out.

Now that I grok the ITunes paradigm (sync folder, duh), it seems easy, but it surprised me to realize that sometimes I have to ask for help with an Apple product.

Hope somebody reads this post.

EMily said, on March 8, 2012 7:08 AM:

Thank you! Why I got this phone I'll never know. It's too smart for me

Ian Mullen said, on March 11, 2012 5:56 AM:

Thank goodness for this site.
I have been struggling with the iTunes software for the last year and managed to load some tunes onto my phone (without understanding how it had happened). iTunes nust be one of the most cumbersome, unintuitive programs ever.
At last, I can load my phone whith the tunes that I want.

Thank yo,

IAN

gygvhj said, on March 13, 2012 8:16 PM:

Bingooooooooo that works

remy said, on March 14, 2012 4:02 PM:

Thanks a lot very very easy and helpful..

Kaily said, on March 15, 2012 1:45 AM:

The only problem I am having is when I do this it will erase all the other contents i had on the Ipod before... Please help me!!

ammu said, on March 21, 2012 10:00 AM:

Hi Dave

Thank u so much for such a useful information... It helped me... Once Again Thank u so much.

Sharon said, on March 25, 2012 11:00 AM:

thank you :-) a BIG help

jose said, on March 30, 2012 6:51 AM:

HI, I have IPhone4, i am not able to download any kind of music fro itunes. if i click on podcasts then it shows the category of games, music and entertainment etc, but if i click on any of these then it shows the list of the videos. for ex- i have clicked on " after the fact" then it takes me to the page in which there are reviews or videos.i dont know what to do, its being 8 months when i got IPhone and i am still trying to download something. I have downloaded some applications and games from application store but i want to know about the itunes. pls help.

mohammed said, on April 4, 2012 8:25 AM:

thanxxxxxx

Angelika said, on April 11, 2012 6:52 PM:

I'm new in Iphone my question is To have a songs in my Iphone I must download iTunes from computer? Thanks.

samurai said, on April 14, 2012 2:17 AM:

IPhone and iTunes sucks i have never seen nothing this complicated just to add music, i recommend not to buy an IPhone it an unnecessary headache.

Hnub said, on April 18, 2012 9:50 PM:

If I did everything on here, will it erase my old musics from the iphone?

it worked said, on April 20, 2012 1:09 AM:

I was dumb and did not create the playlist under "Playlist" in the itunes drop down. That was my issue.

Rachelle Cassetta said, on April 21, 2012 4:33 PM:

I just purchased an iphone 4s and want to put my iTunes on my phone. I created the playlist but, my iPhone isn't showing up as a device. How do I move the playlist if no device is showing up? Please help. This is very confusing. This looks so straight forward. Any advise is welcome. Thanks!

Wendy Mihm said, on April 28, 2012 12:03 PM:

This is really helpful -- thanks! It took me awhile to get it to work. The key for me was to ensure that both of my computers were set up so that Home Sharing was on. My newer computer was able to recognize my iPhone 4, but my old laptop had too old an operating system to recognize my phone (I think). But that old laptop has all my music on it. Once I figured out how to enable Home Sharing on both the old laptop and the new iMac, I was set. Thanks again!

Lola said, on May 8, 2012 12:58 PM:

Hi, so I recently got a new phone, but it was my brother's, so I had to wipe it and he restored on his new iPhone. When i tried to sync this, it synced EVERYTHING.

darren said, on May 10, 2012 5:01 AM:

thank you sooooo f*&king much... 2 days of stress, your a star

Eileen said, on May 15, 2012 9:25 AM:

Used your instructions for iPhone sync from iTunes. Worked like a charm on the first try.
Easy Fa-cheesy!!!

Thanks so much.

James said, on May 21, 2012 11:35 AM:

dave, the songs in my computer are stored in windows media player. i want to transfer them to my iphone without erasing the songs that are on my iphone. when i try i get the message about erasing the music currently on my iphone. what to do? please help! thanks, James

david said, on May 25, 2012 12:28 AM:

It was so helpful
thank u so much

Judy said, on May 25, 2012 8:08 AM:

Great directions, even for a dolt like me. Thank you.

intermezzo said, on May 29, 2012 1:37 PM:

Thanks, worked perfectly!

Pavla said, on June 1, 2012 2:44 PM:

Thank you Dave! Very helpful and easy to follow instructions.

anzna said, on June 11, 2012 8:38 AM:

plz tell me what should i do now?i read your instruction and did as u say.but the iTune do not show devices option from where i cud reach the summary option.plz help me.i am unable load songs on my itunes of pc to my iphone.

stonelegs said, on June 12, 2012 6:38 AM:

Thank you for simplifying this process of downloading audio from PC to iPhone. You show six basic steps to this process with variations depending on what a person is trying to do. You are straightforward and clear in your explanation.

God,Worshiper said, on June 13, 2012 10:24 AM:

make a file with the songs you want

click on your music

and change autofill to the file you have your music on

then click autofill

rhonda said, on June 13, 2012 6:30 PM:

You are a lifesaver thank you!!

Molly Williams said, on June 16, 2012 12:42 AM:

THANK YOU SO MUCH, DAVE! I appreciate you taking the time to help us all -- Cheers!

ThankfulReader said, on June 19, 2012 5:27 AM:

Hi - thank you so much.

This clear and step by step page helped soooo much and is what I wish the whole internet was like.

mohamed said, on June 20, 2012 11:48 AM:

done thank you

Patricia Shepard said, on June 22, 2012 4:43 PM:

Thank you, Dave! I work for a cell phone company, and even though we do not support itunes issues, googling my question brought up your site, and cust had her music moved from itunes to iphone within about 3 minutes thanks to your excellent, step by step instructions! Bravo!!

Kate said, on June 30, 2012 2:12 PM:

Couldn't have been more helpful!!

Thanks ever so much!

natallie said, on July 5, 2012 10:53 AM:

Thankyou sooooo much!!!!!!! : )

Jacob said, on July 7, 2012 6:41 AM:

THANKS!!! After starting to hate the iphone I now love it again and all my music is back where it belongs! Your instructions were great and easy to follow! Tks again!

Judge_D said, on July 9, 2012 2:20 PM:

And this is why iPhones are RUBBISH! I've got a HTC Desire and an iPhone 4s supplied by work. I can't believe how difficult everything is with iPhone. With Android you simply drag and drop. None of the set up and sync nonsense. The fact that SO MANY people have posted on this topic shows just how fundamentally wrong Apple are.

Daniel said, on July 11, 2012 2:41 AM:

Thanks Dave. You are a legend! This had me scratching my head for ages!!

Ebony-Jayne said, on July 17, 2012 4:27 AM:

Hi Dave,
it worked all the other times but it wont work fro Tones!! :/ I dont know what to do?
Can you please help???

Love Ebony

k said, on July 26, 2012 4:21 PM:

Hi

I am really hoping you might be able to help me. My email is kgskgs@hotmail.co.uk

I've tried following your clear and detailed advice on synching itunes to an iphone but it just wont work for me and my iphone. Its an iphone4, was some one elses prior to mine, I have an itunes account on my laptop but it wont synch..... could you help l
please?

rmcclelland said, on August 8, 2012 12:37 PM:

omg. i was pulling my hair out. thx

gopal said, on August 10, 2012 3:41 AM:

i have iphone 4s ios5.0.1 i can't see my device on my compular please let me know?

Deb said, on August 12, 2012 2:32 PM:

Dave, thank you for your instructions. All but one song made it from my iTunes library to my iPhone (Not sure why just one song didn't make it?). Anyway, I'm really stoked, so thank you.
Another question for you? I can't seem to figure out how to get my iTunes music to mirror that of my Windows Media Player. My iTunes has 2109 songs and WMP has 2095, 14 songs less. Not sure which songs. I've been successful in dragging an MP3 song from WMP to iTunes but not the other way around.
~Deb

Cole said, on August 13, 2012 6:27 PM:

Thank you so much for this! I can finally get my all music on now! Before only certain songs would show up and it was all very confusing! Again thanks!!

Doug said, on August 15, 2012 12:34 PM:

WOW Thank you so much. I cannot believe I finally got my music on. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

PG said, on August 24, 2012 9:37 PM:

This person's advice worked great step by step instructions.

Jurica said, on August 27, 2012 6:21 AM:

thanks dave it worked!!!

Laura said, on August 30, 2012 2:16 PM:

Thank you so freaking much!!

Alex said, on September 4, 2012 2:12 PM:

THANK YOU DAVE!
I really appreciate it.

Nan said, on September 12, 2012 12:05 PM:

I tried to drag and drop cds and mps into itunes. i got a cd in but it won't sinc to ipod. any ideas?

Igwe ibiam said, on September 23, 2012 4:55 AM:

My iPhone does not 2go'please help me

8ESBABY said, on September 23, 2012 4:57 PM:

Thank you, but I have a PC and when I plug in my iPhone, nothing pops up...just the little battery icon appears. I'm sitting here like, "What pop up screen is he talking about!??!?!" Needless to say I had to call tech support and their RECORDING told me in the first few mins to "CLICK on devices" and THEN the screen with the 'music' tab will pop up (maybe because I have a PC???) As you can see this is my first time purchasing from iTunes because I have a Zune and I pay monthly (not as I go along) and all you do with it is the 3 D's: Download, Drag and Drop!

ahmad said, on September 29, 2012 10:18 AM:

this thing is perfect it took time but done i had sync 365 photos and 500 songs thanks for your help youre really cool

Randi Pennell said, on September 29, 2012 6:31 PM:

Thank you this helps me so much!! I didn't want my entire library on my phone

mizarwen said, on October 1, 2012 3:45 AM:

Wow! It really works pretty well. The instructions given is super easy. I had this unknown error when syncing my songs into my iphone but following step by step sure make my iphone sync smoothly. Thank u :)

Paul said, on October 5, 2012 1:56 AM:

Please date your articles! This information is no longer correct. Nor does it account for 56 folders of audiobooks wherein the file names are identical for each folder. Eg. Les Miserables/Disk 01/Les Miserables - Track 01.mp3

Brittany said, on October 9, 2012 8:05 PM:

when i sync my iphone and then go to my music (ipod) it doesnt show up and it says that i dont have any music on it! why is that? and can i get music onto itunes and then onto my iphone without buying it from the itunes store?? please answer my question asap! thanks! :)

mL said, on October 12, 2012 1:19 AM:

awesome, thanks. great pictures too.

gilgamesh said, on October 14, 2012 12:05 PM:

Hey everyone,
Don't follow these steps. It will delete all the music you already have on your iphone.
There is no way to randomly add music to your iphone. You must buy music from the iTune store and make sure you never use your iphone on more than one machine. If you loose your machine, than your iphone music will be irrecoverable.
G.

Anu said, on October 14, 2012 9:42 PM:

Hi Dave,
I copied MP3 files from my PC to itune. I can play them fine on itunes on PC but when I sync my iPod and try to play in it I only hear bits and pieces of the book. Can it be fixed? Thanks in advance for your help.

sarah said, on October 16, 2012 12:24 PM:

cheers hunny,..very helpful

fedecy said, on October 19, 2012 4:17 PM:

thx so much!

Margo said, on October 21, 2012 8:24 PM:

Brilliant! You just relived my frustrations about adding/deleting songs to my iPhone.

Thank you

emma said, on October 24, 2012 11:29 AM:

hey!!! when i open iTunes, my iphone is not visible (but i see that it is connected). what should i do???

Aly Boswell said, on October 25, 2012 3:38 PM:

This is by far the best site for explaining things I think mostly due to the fact that you show diagrammes which for the older people like myself is a real plus. Thank you

Carla said, on October 25, 2012 5:07 PM:

well, that's just awesome! my entire music library was erased!!!!!!!!! okay, i have to go cry now! what a jerk you are!

Dave Taylor said, on October 25, 2012 8:38 PM:

Sorry for your bad outcome, Carla, but when iTunes pops up the window asking if you want to replace the current iPhone music library with the music you're syncing from iTunes, you need to take the query - and subsequent warning that the existing music will be removed - seriously. :-(

george said, on October 26, 2012 4:10 AM:

this was so helpful thannx

Nasser said, on November 4, 2012 8:14 PM:

Dave,
will this steps work with I phone 5?

I followd the steps, but I found now music in my I phone 5!!!!

Nasser said, on November 4, 2012 8:28 PM:

Sorry, I ment no music?

frustrated said, on November 9, 2012 10:48 PM:

I tried to follow your steps and made a playlist in iTunes and connected my iPhone to the computer. When I went into the music section of my phone on iTunes I tried to click the sync music box and a box pops up warning me that all existing content on my iPhone will be removed and replaced with what I sync from my computer! I do not want to lose all the music I have paid for on my phone so I don't know how to get past that step. Someone please help I hate computers :)

Laura said, on November 10, 2012 9:25 AM:

Thanks!

Alan said, on November 14, 2012 1:00 PM:

Dave - Many thanks for the advice on downloading music from iTunes to iPhone. i've been going nuts for days but your approach worked within two minutes.
Alan

Char said, on November 15, 2012 6:34 AM:

I have an iphone 4s I did everything on here but when i go to sync my phone I cant click on playlist. It will only add my entire library The selected playlist button is there but wont let me choose it. Please help! I have the latest version of itunes and the OS

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

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How do I copy music onto my Apple iPhone from iTunes?

Reader Comments To Date: 646

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