Copying Music from mac to iphone - how is it this bad?

[Sheridan]

For the first time I've found myself with both an iphone and a Mac Mini (m1) for home use - usually I've an android phone/macbook or iphone/windows laptop so I've always copied music to my phone manually from my stored MP3 collection, ripped from CDs over many years

 

So plugging my iphone into my mac and dragging the files across should be pretty straightforward? No - its almost unusable! If I select a handful of tracks and drag from the local storage on the mac to the iphone (connected via apple usb cable) it basically stutters, jerks about and freezes when dragged over to the phone in finder - sometimes taking 10-20 seconds for the green 'plus' copy icon to appear, its so frustrating!

 

It can't be this bad surely? Its a modern mac and modern iphone 14 and its like using a 15 year old XP laptop!

 

Short of buying a third party app is there anything I can do? otherwise I can see a Windows laptop being the next option

[DalekSec]

TLDR: In Apple Ecosystem plugging in devices to move files is old hat.

 

I tend to do everything via Airdrop these days with apple devices

[localzuk]

Isn't the Apple way to use iTunes for this, rather than dragging/dropping?

[Sheridan]

Isn't the Apple way to use iTunes for this, rather than dragging/dropping?

 

Apple Music replaced itunes on MacOS, so now you see the phone in Finder, and either sync with library, or drag and drop

 

Itunes still works on Windows - ironically!

[Sheridan]

Turns out this is an even bigger crock than I thought!

 

If I drag and drop from storage to either the phone in Finder, or Apple Music - I can get delays of 20-50 seconds before it will let me 'drop'!

 

So I ditched the Mac as being the source, connected the drive to my older Windows pc, ran iTunes and that won't let me manage the music manually because its already 'synched' to another device (i.e my Mac!)

 

So that rubbish because a) I'm only ever manually managing my music so its not synching with a library and b) iPhone and MacOS are designed to only work with a Music subscription by the look of it

 

So I'll have to wipe all music off my phone and start again, using the Windows PC. And buy android next time...

[DalekSec]

Did you try via AirDrop? Never had an issue this way.

[Sheridan]

Did you try via AirDrop? Never had an issue this way.

 

Airdrop doesn’t seem to work with music files. It asks where you want to store them and none of the options are where Music is, it’s quite a tied up system I’m realising!

[Tom_M]

You need to import your files into the 'Music' Application. Once they're imported, navigate to Finder, select your iDevice, click "Music", Sync Library and that'll auto-populate the list w/ all of the items you have in the Music App. You also have the option to then sync over WiFi for subsequent syncs.

 

Whilst using AirDrop is supported; it's not designed to work for importing files into the respective Apps (Music, Videos etc) - They'd just be present in the 'Files' App which is not what you want.

[2ilent8cho]

I've recently ditched streaming and ripped all my CDs and gone back to local on my iPhone. On my Mac (M1, using Ventura) you have to import and organise your music on the Mac first in the Music application. Then you simply sync it to your iPhone by ticking which Albums/Playlists you want to sync after clicking the phone icon in the Music App.

[Sheridan]

I didn’t want to have to use the sync method, I wanted a more manual (i.e like windows or android) way - I’ve got so much ripped music from cds over the decades I just want to mantain a copy ‘offline’ and copy on what I want to listen to on my phone

 

Having faffed about with this for a while, I updated my external ssd (which was a Kingston in a good quality sata enclosure) with a Samsung t7 external ssd and wow, it’s night and day - the drag and drop copy is so much faster, with only a very occasional lag

 

Oddly the old ssd drive enclosure copies to and from the Mac (and windows machine I also use) quickly, and disk speed tests show proper sata speeds of 300mbps so I don’t know why it’s so laggy when copying music, but with the t7 in a sale it was worth the gamble!

 

So although I don’t get why its fixed I’m much happier with the copy speeds!

[psydii]

I have heard the guys on the extremely pro-Apple Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) grumble that currently usb storage on the Mx hardware/ generations of software is a bit flaky, with little apparent rhyme or reason to what is stable and what is not.

[NeoNebula]

Last night, I tried to copy all my music, but it's gone. I just can't find it either on my iPhone or my laptop.I just remembered my college professor's words, 'You buy Apple Music, but you don't own it, ' which makes sense to me now.

[Brax]

Last night, I tried to copy all my music, but it's gone. I just can't find it either on my iPhone or my laptop.I just remembered my college professor's words, 'You buy Apple Music, but you don't own it, ' which makes sense to me now.

Have you seen Playstation taking away titles for movies/tv shows that people have bought digitally? Keeping physical media still is so important imo because as shown they can take away content whenever they like.

On topic I've found iTunes for windows works well. You have to "Sync" your phone to your library but once that's done it's pretty easy to drag and drop stuff over to your iphone. I tend to import CD's and throw that on there. Having said that I found out the hard way that if you don't use an official apple cable iTunes struggles to pick up your phone as a device.

[Koldov]

Years ago I had a Nokia phone which is an Android type thing I guess (I've never been into phones and didn't take a lot of notice). I don't really listen to music a lot on my phone but I create a lot of my own music and was really used to just connecting it up to the computer and dragging tracks across.

 

I have to admit when I got my first iPhone (a hand-me-down from the OH) I really, really hated the fact that everything had to be done the 'Apple way' and required me to install iTunes onto my PC just to get music on my phone (and having to add the tracks to my 'Library' before doing that). Then it had to 'sync' everything and it just got very frustrating! you just have to learn to accept the Apple ecosystem... accept... accept... "It Just Works"...

 

I haven't looked into it since, so don't know if it's any easier these days, I don't even bother trying and just play them from my Dropbox...

Edited December 4, 2023 by Koldov

[NeoNebula]

The problem with iTunes is that you can easily get lost with all these syncs, especially if you need to urgently charge your phone from someone's computer. Well, I guess this is the case for me. But who knows where did this music go.That's why I think we pay for songs, but we don't really own them. Now, I looked for the songs, and to get my music back, I need again to pay for it.