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Music won't properly sync its iOS and macOS data.

I have a smart playlist created on my Mac that is synced to my iPhone. The list is comprised of songs that are locally stored on both my iPhone and on my Mac. I have primarily been using my iPhone to play the list.


The list depends on the "last played" field. Each time a song is played, it's new last played field no longer fits the list's parameters and the song vanishes from the list. As a byproduct of this I can easily tell if a song has been played since I started playing the list. There a little more than 11K songs on the list when it begins to play.


When the list completes playing on the iPhone—when it has no more songs—I sync the phone with my laptop using a lightning cable. But after doing this, not all of the songs have their date fields updated. Anywhere from 20-200 songs won't be marked as played on the Mac when they most certainly were played on the iPhone. I have to play each song in masOS's Music to get the app to mark the songs as played.


I would (perhaps obviously) like things to work as they ought to work and would appreciate any advice that might help me fix this problem.


I use an iPhone 11 running 16.5 and a 14" MBP M1 running 13.4.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 13.4

Posted on May 29, 2023 12:21 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 21, 2023 11:42 AM

Thank you for the suggestion, mingoslkd.


After four calls to support, the second "senior advisor" to whom I spoke informed me that the behavior I have noted is "to be expected."


That's right.


"Syncing the Mac and the iPhone is a one-way street," I was told. "You can't expect the same behavior when syncing from the iPhone to a Mac."


So what every iPod could do with every version of iTunes no longer works with the iPhone and Mac Music.


This is sadly disappointing, Apple. You have been slowly breaking the application that was iTunes and you just don't care. After almost two decades of using "iTunes," I'm finally ready to toss it for a third party application.


Well done.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 21, 2023 11:42 AM in response to mingoslkd

Thank you for the suggestion, mingoslkd.


After four calls to support, the second "senior advisor" to whom I spoke informed me that the behavior I have noted is "to be expected."


That's right.


"Syncing the Mac and the iPhone is a one-way street," I was told. "You can't expect the same behavior when syncing from the iPhone to a Mac."


So what every iPod could do with every version of iTunes no longer works with the iPhone and Mac Music.


This is sadly disappointing, Apple. You have been slowly breaking the application that was iTunes and you just don't care. After almost two decades of using "iTunes," I'm finally ready to toss it for a third party application.


Well done.

May 30, 2023 11:01 AM in response to Nathan Walters

Hi Nathan Walters,


Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. We understand you have some questions about Smart Playlists. We recommend giving the following resource a look to ensure your settings are correct for the playlist: Create, edit, and delete Smart Playlists in Music on Mac


If you've checked all those settings and this issue persists, reach out for further support here:

Get Support


Thanks.



Music won't properly sync its iOS and macOS data.

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