You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iOS 13 Playlists Re-Sorted

So I've always maintained synced/sorted playlists on my Macs and iPhones. Most frequently, I use multiple Smart Playlists that give me my newest purchases, sorted by genre. In other words, I'll have a 'New Releases' playlist for any genre that I want to listen to at a given moment. They're sorted newest to oldest (by Purchase Date). I set them up this way on my MacBook, and then sync my iPhone. They stay sorted on my phone in the same order that they appear on the MacBook...


...until now. Since the iOS 13 update, the iPhone ignores the sort order of music on my MacBook and sorts songs alphabetically by artist name. ??? Why? That's almost completely useless to me. It might be the least relevant sequence for listening to music ever. I can sort the sequence of my playlists (another largely useless feature), but not the sequence of the songs in the playlists. Am I missing something? My OCD brain needs to resolve sort problem so I can function in society again. :)


Please help.


Thanks,


Paul

iPhone X

Posted on Oct 14, 2019 3:23 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 15, 2019 12:48 PM

Hold on, I was able to finally get the sort order transferred by deselecting the "Live updating" in the smart playlist rules. This clearly wasn't required before, nor was the "Copy to Play Order," with iTunes.


This sucks but works for now.

Similar questions

13 replies

Oct 15, 2019 12:32 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for "Copy to Play Order" which I never saw before because by default my playlist (both static and smart) transferred as sorted to my iPhone and iPad with iTunes; there was no need to "commit" the sort preference. I tested, and yes, the right click to select this option did indeed copy my sort preference of a static playlist to my IOS device. It did not work for my Smart Playlist (which is extremely important for me).


Apple, is this a bug? PLEASE allow us to sort our playlists (any and all) on IOS.


Thanks again for the question above and the answer.

Oct 15, 2019 3:06 PM in response to jhaggard

I'm dealing with exactly this issue, and I'll try this workaround as soon as I get home, because this is extremely frustrating, I have a lot of smart playlists that are useless since upgrading to iOS 13.


But make no mistake, Apple, this IS a bug, and it needs to be fixed. ASAP. Even just playing a regular album messes up the order of songs, especially on multi-disc albums.


So, please fix.

Nov 2, 2019 6:49 PM in response to Paul Mantey

Regarding smart playlists; this worked for me:


I had to both un-select "Live updating" and right click on each smart playlist to select the command "Copy to Play Order". This worked.


What didn't work: Initially I tried just clicking on Copy to Play Order, and that worked, but only for those playlists where I didn't have "Live updating" selected. So I had to go back through my smart playlists to de-select "Live updating". Because it's easy and relatively fast, I then selected "Copy to Play Order" again on each smart playlist where I had just de-selected 'Live updating'.

Nov 4, 2019 11:50 AM in response to Kevrowland

I have given up on Music on Catalina and have instead moved back to iTunes on Windows where everything still works. I had to transfer my playlists (static can be exported and imported, Smart needs to be recreated), which is a pain in the neck, but once back to Windows iTunes, I'm able to function again. I'm very grateful I was able to restore Sonos view of my iTunes Playlists.


I have lost count of the number of problems with the Music app, from losing Column Browser view, Search being useless, XML data gone which kills playlists rendering in Sonos, sort issues all over the place, loss of visibility on sync progress, etc.


On Windows, I'm running iTunes 12.10.0.7 and I simply will never budge from that release which I can control on Windows. I lost use of Doug's Scripts by moving off of Mac, but that is the price I'll have to pay.


Hope this helps others.


John


Btw, my sync to my iPhone is way faster, I forgot it used to be that fast. Mac to iPhone has been slow for some time with either wifi or cable.

Dec 28, 2019 5:29 PM in response to MUrhino

I’ve kept an eye on updates with both IOS and Catalina using a backup iPhone to see if bugs fixed and features restored, but only the major improvement has been the return of browser view. I am very, very, grateful I am also a Windows user and was able to switch back to an iTunes that still works. It seems clear that power users who manage their own libraries are not a priority for Apple, so I’m searching for longer term solution.


To switch back to Windows iTunes I exported/imported all my static playlists and recreated my smart playlists. I also suggest folks transfer ratings (and “Love/dislike” flag) to the comments field so they get stored in the metadata for preservation. I use a collection of smart playlists to manage this en masse. I use Dropbox for my music (300+ gb) so music already synced between MacOS and Windows and I don’t have to worry about either system failing or getting destroyed.


And finally, I purchase music on Amazon getting CD’s with most having Autorip enabling me to get MP3 immediately while CD’s are shipped for backup remaining shrink wrapped. This saved me the other day when an error was discovered in digital download of Sia’s Christmas album ( very good btw).


I sincerely hope this helps others.



iOS 13 Playlists Re-Sorted

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