User profile for user: khamburger
khamburger Author
User level: Level 1
39 points

Sync music between iPhone and Mac

I have admittedly not changed the music on Music (formerly iTunes) for a long time. Since I had a lot of old and unnecessary songs, I decided to clean up the song list on MBP today. I had assumed that my iPhone would automatically and wirelessly sync but I've learned that Apple got rid of this feature some time old.


So I connected a USB cable to the two devices and did a sync. For some reason on the iPhone I now have duplicate copies of all my songs and many of the songs I deleted are still present.


Is there anyway to reinitialize the iPhone Music app without any songs and then re-sync from my MBP? Any thoughts on how to proceed?

Posted on Feb 18, 2025 6:09 PM

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User profile for user: Servant of Cats
Servant of Cats
User level: Level 7
24,556 points

Feb 21, 2025 7:57 PM in response to khamburger

Apple has three different mechanisms for synchronizing music:


  • Manual synchronization from a Mac or PC to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod. (Sync music between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support). This is the traditional method, where the mobile device gets a selection of songs from the Mac's or PC's music library that replaces the mobile device's contents.
  • Synchronization using the iTunes Match subscription service.
  • Synchronization using the "Sync Library" feature of the Apple Music subscription service.


I believe that you can do manual synchronization over Wi-Fi … but you must first do USB-based synchronization, and turn on a "Show this [device] when on Wi-Fi" or similar option.

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User profile for user: khamburger
khamburger Author
User level: Level 1
39 points

Feb 28, 2025 8:43 PM in response to Servant of Cats

Thanks for your reply. I'll respond to your three mechanisms in reverse order.


  • Sync Library feature - only works if one is subscribed to Apple Music. I am not and don't want to pay for the service just to sync my devices.
  • iTunes Match service - as far as I have been able to determine iTunes only exists fro audiobooks, podcasts and syncing Windows computers to ios devices. I am using a MacBook Pro. iTunes Match is also a subscription service.
  • Manual sync - I have trued this using a USB connection. I don't believe that wireless sync is still an operable feature. However, only some tracks are syncing. Most are not. If there was a way to "reset" the sync log, that might be helpful, but I haven't been able to find any way to do so.
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Sync music between iPhone and Mac

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