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?
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”:
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:
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. 🙂
Still learning about your iPhone? We have lots of iPhone help here on the site! And if you’re interested in finding a useful tool that can help you transfer music from your iPhone to your iTunes library and computer, you might also check out the Windows or Mac version of FonePaw iOS Transfer too.
Simple and it worked….thank you
I accidentally transfered the music from my iphone to the computer, now it’s not on my iphone, how do I put it back on the iphone?
I have uploaded some music onto my main itunes library which plays fine but when I put certain songs into the iphone playlist they are greyed out and will n ot play. Then when I sync this playlist to my iphone these certain songs are not transferred over at all..any ideas why this is happening?
Please don’t call me any names, but how do you drag a music file from iTunes to a Playlist. You’ve assumed that is really easy but when I try to drag it, the new playlist doesn’t highlight. Thank you in advance.
Dear Mr.Dave,
Now I can listen to music from iphone.Only because of your guidance I could download music from my laptop to iphone.Your instructions are crystal clear
May God Bless you
Happy new year
Thanks a lot
Sabu
Ha haha…I am so happy 🙂 I now have my music on my iPhone to listen to in Beijing 🙂
Thanks Dave…really helpful 🙂
Ahhh…maybe I have solved it…or I am a fool !
I dragged my new playlist(in the left hand column of iTunes) up to my devices and dropped it into my phone….and now the songs are going onto my iPhone 🙂
Did I miss something ?
Hi Dave,
New to the iPhone….
I followed your instructions correctly.However, when I go into the Music section on my iPhone 4s nothing is there. Please help….
Hey 🙂
I don’t have a mac, which I think is the problem.
“The usual summary screen” does not pop up for me, all I get is something that only imports songs and pictures from the iphone to the computer… And it looks nothing like yours.
What do I do? I managed to make the list and drag all the songs over, but there really is no way to get it onto the iPhone.
Feel free to email me this, seeing as there are alot of comments to keep track of.
Thank you so much. I followed your directions and all my albums transferred to my I Phone. Your instructions were simple to follow – much more than Apple Support
wow thanks alot this helped me so much..
Thanks for the tips on how to move my music from itunes to my iphone!!! Worked like a charm and now I am enjoying my music!!!! Happy New Year
I have a toshiba laptop but it does not drag and drop what do i do? please help..
I am having trouble getting music from a cd to my iphone 3. I am able of getting cds on my ipod but when I try to sync or manually drag the songs to iphone is shows a circle with a line slashed through it. I am able to get anything I purchase from ITunes on it with no problem. It is driving me nuts. Please help.
RodC, the digital rights management system in iTunes is definitely an issue, but it’s also definitely not the case that any music you don’t buy from iTunes cannot be sync’d. In fact, most of the music on my Mac / iPhone is from CDs I’ve ripped and it works fine. If you’re seeing “cannot sync”, it’s for another reason.
Seems to be difficult to transfer due to Apple iTunes copyright protection? Can only transfer items bought on iTunes otherwise is says ‘cannot sync’?
Hi Dave,
Saw your tutorial..used it on my iphone..It worked great. My wife got a new iphone now, and I cant get her music files over to the “iphone sync” playlist…Not sure why.. Only a couple of songs show up all the time (allways the same songs)..I cant figure out what I am doing wrong. Can you help me?
Sincerely;
dave taylor fan
Billyb
Thanks so much for this. My daughter was given an iPhone 3G by her StepDad. Years ago he asked me if we could put all of his Beatles CDs on to my computer in order to get them onto this iPhone. I had already been using iTunes because My daughter had the iPod Shuffle but he and i could not get his iPhone to work. I told him to look into it and research it and I’d gladly hook it up again. Of course i wasn’t going to go out of my way to do HIS research…lol. Now my girl has his old iPhone. I told her she should load up all of those Beatles tunes and walk around the house listening to them. she said, “no thanks”
thank you Dave it was good help 4 me
Thank you so much. That was so helpful. I took off some music from my iPhone and haven’t been able to put more in, so have not had any of the Christmas music that I wanted this season. Finally today, I can now play it. Thanks again 🙂 xxxxx
I have tried this but the music doesn’t seem to be transferring back to my iphone from itunes, all it is doing is copying the music from the iphone without the music coming off the iphone. How can i put the music that had been taken off back onto it?
Thank you so much Dave! This is SUPER helpful 🙂 🙂
Hi Dave
Have a iPhone4s and I am having the same problem as described by Bert Dubois on August 19,2007
Your assistance would be greatly appreciated
Mike E
awesome!! just got my first iPhone and these instructions are 100% accurate!! thanks 🙂
Thanks just got the iphone 4s helps alot
Thanks for your awesome advice! You make things so easy to understand! Better than anyone!!!
Hi Dave,
I followed ur instructions to sync my music from laptop to my iPhone, but when I pressed on the ‘Music’ tap, and followed by ‘sync music’, a warning appeared saying that if I sync, all my iphone contents will be erased. Thus, chicken out and dared not proceed further. Please explain what it meant by the term ‘content’. Thank you so much.
I’m new to the world of Apple products. I have tried a couple times to get songs from my Mac to my Iphone. I followed your directions and after I use the SYNC button I get questions about erasing my IPhone. And what does Revert mean? I find it confusing and I’m not sure what I should do. Eric
I always panic when I get to sites explaining stuff, concerning myself that it won’t work.
This worked staright away thank to your straight forward instructions. Thank you so much
i have receive an iphone that was designed by Apple in California Assembled in China Model and i am trying to download songs from my computer to the itunes so i could download it to the ipod but its not going through. can you help me please cuz its driving me crazzzy……!!!
Hi Dave:
I have a 3GS iphone and had the WiFi on and it updated my software to the iSO 5.0.1 and since then the phone is not working right. I think the last time I synced on iTunes I still had the iSO 4 software. Is there a way for me to check on iTunes to see what software was synced?
I need to restore the phone, but only want to do so if I can reinstall my last sync with the iSO 4 software so I do not lose all my info.
Any guidance is appreciated.
just choose autofill from …and choose the playlist if the above doesnt work for you. it didnt for me until i tried this
Thank you! This is one of the only times I’ve ever Googled how to do something like this that it was clear and I didn’t end up screaming the F word at the computer. Yay!
I PURCHASED A APPLE IPHONE 4 IN SAUDI ARABIA STILL IAM USING IN INDIA BUT PROBLEM WAS THAT I CONNECT WITH COMPUTER TO DAWNLOAD BUT DAWNLOAD IS NOT ACCESS PLEASE SEND ME A USER GUIDE ON MY EMAIL ID PLZ…
Thank you so much! I’ve had my phone since Feb and you’re the first person who could actually help me.
Hi ! This was really useful, but when I plug my iPhone4s into my computer, the icon for the device does not pop up and therefore I cannot transfer my new playlist. Help !!
Thanks for this, useful tutorial.
Thanks Dave, your step-by-step instructions and pics made it so simple… and even though things have changed slightly since your post, it still was easy.
Appreciated muchly 🙂
Thank you Dave!! All the other information from other folks was so confusing! Yours was so simple I thought theres no way this works. But it does and you really helped me I was so stressed! Thanks a million!
awesome – easy to understand and I did it – I have my music back – thanks man!!!
i just bought an unlocked iphone 4gs in lebanon and i want to put songs in it… how should i do it??
I recently bought an iphone 4s but my Itunes is version 9.2.1 so it is saying that I have to upgrade it but my computer is Mac OS 10.4.11 and can not support the newer version of Itunes. Is it really impossible for me to sync the data(music, photos, contacts, etc.) in my computer to the iphone 4 without upgrading Itunes. Are there any other ways aside from Itunes?
My old laptop is dead and I just downloaded Itunes in my new laptop and imported a cd but it wont allow me to transfer the music to my iphone. Please help! I cannot get the new OS system because I dont want to lose all my music. Why does Apple make things so flippin difficult!!??
thanks heaps, most helpful
Thank you so much!!!!
I have an iPhone4 and when I plug it in It does not appear on the left side. What can i do?
Danielle Ezell
havnt tried it yet…… im gonna see if its gona work…
I did everything you’ve mentioned above but it does not work as it says that an unknown error has occurred (-54). what does that mean? by the way my Iphone (3GS) is unlocked. thanks in advance!!
what is this man?
why dont know to put i will tell take the itunes take ring tones take your song from the directory put ctrl plus c and take to itunes and put ctrl plus v
try it the u say
goodnight
by prithiraj
u cant see me man
omg! u rock the mic! got it…thank u thank u thank u!!!! love u! dancin with my iphone! sincerely, K