No “Sort By” function for playlists on my Apple Music on iPhone

My playlists, which I copy manually from my MacBook Pro to my devices, are mostly in reverse order on the devices (iPhones and iPad). Every time I search for a solution I get the “tap the three dots at the upper right and select Sort By” advice. Friends, there is no Sort By function in that menu on any of my devices. It’s driving me crazy. 




Because it may be significant to know, I subscribe to Apple Music, but I don’t have sync turned on. My music collection on my MacBook Pro is huge and I don’t want the entire thing on my devices, so I manually load them. (Yes, I know about the “copy to play order” function, and I use it, but it doesn’t work consistently.) I’m also reluctant to use Sync because a lot of music existed from the earliest days of iTunes and wasn’t all purchased from Apple, and I’m afraid of it getting deleted or lost. 

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Jul 2, 2023 09:17 AM

Reply

Similar questions

7 replies

Jul 2, 2023 10:18 AM in response to amsch

Thank-you! Based on the options there it does look like it's considering this as a playlist you don't technically own. This looks exactly like the options I receive when adding a friend's playlist to my Library.


It sounds tedious.. but hear me out and let me know if it works!


First make sure your iPhone is updated to the most up to date version (iOS 16.5.1).


Secondly, do you see that Add to a Playlist button? I'm wondering if you create an empty playlist and then click that Add to a Playlist button, adding it to the empty playlist if you'd then be able to sort and edit it, if that makes sense?


  1. Open Music
  2. Tap Library
  3. Tap Playlists
  4. Tap New Playlist...
  5. Give it a name and tap Done
  6. Open this playlist (the one you sent in the screenshot)
  7. Tap Add to Playlist...
  8. Choose the playlist we just created


Once the songs have been sent over to this new playlist, delete the old one!


Let me know if this works🤞



Jul 2, 2023 01:15 PM in response to amsch

It is always really tough answering technology (hardware/software) questions without the device in hand😅


Short answer is, could be?


I would recommend only using one account and Apple ID on your Mac.

  1. On macOS, directories (folders) to separate files and documents (School, Personal, Work, etc.).
  2. In Safari, use Tab Groups (or Profiles coming in macOS Sonoma [coming this fall]).
  3. In Mail, add your two separate accounts


There are plenty of other features of macOS that will properly split the data so you can still stay organized all on one account. This would avoid the need to log in and out constantly if you needed something on the other account.


Honestly, the best advice would be to turn on Sync Library, but I understand you don't want to do this as you don't want all the songs to go over to your iPhone.

Jul 2, 2023 12:30 PM in response to pjswiz

I imagine you can't answer this for certain, but here's another thing about my quirky library: my MacBook Pro has 2 users, "a" and "b" (they're both mine, but that's how I divided my work and non-work business), and way back in the first days of iTunes, I set my music folder to be in the "Shared" folder so that both sides(users) of my computer use could access my music. Do you think that's anything to do with it? Would it be worth moving and changing that location?

Jul 2, 2023 09:51 AM in response to amsch

Hello amsch,


Could you please share a screenshot of what you do see when you tap on More (the three sots in the upper right)?


My first thought was maybe when you're dealing with public playlists it doesn't allow you to sort them, because I know you cannot edit the songs or rearrange the order. However, I just tested this with one of my friends playlists and I was able to tap More > Sort By. My initial thought was that since you're copying them over manually it's not registering as your playlist, but I was wrong.


A screenshot of what you see would be extremely helpful!

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

No “Sort By” function for playlists on my Apple Music on iPhone

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.