Play music on iPhone, does not update plays or last played on Apple Music for Mac

So as the data updates overnight I will play again tomorrow to see how I get on - I have updated to 17.2 - I did notice that when i turned on the app it did say Welcome to Apple music like it had been updated!

Hi all: I have iPhone 13 with iOS 17.2.1 and MacBook Air that is updated to most recent version of Sonoma.

My play count hasn't synced properly from iPhone since I "upgraded" from iPhone 8 a few years ago. The play count update in the library on MacBook Air from phone is very sporadic & updates a fraction of the songs played on the phone ~ 10%. I have reported it to Apple Support- my sense is it is not a high priority for them to fix. When I plug the phone into the computer (the old way to sync up play count in library, it says it is "syncing" but nothing happens. One support person suggested that I uninstall/reinstall the Music app on phone indicating "for some it has resolved this issue"- but this would likely lose all of that play history from phone and may cause more problems so I haven't done it.

Mine seemed to work BRIEFLY on New Years Day but since then it is not working. It's not updating. Now today it seems to be working again, although the songs for my 'test' playlist are updating on my iPhone it still shows "Updated 3w ago" ... I'll keep monitoring it and posting here. Hope it's helpful to others, your posts are helpful to me.

So on mine -- It takes about 24 hours for the lists to sync. I'm not sure if that's the problem you're describing or not , or why it happens that way. But here's an example of how this goes on my end:

I listen to 15 songs on my iPhone on Thursday. Only the first song syncs with my playlist on the Mac.

I listen to 15 songs on my iPhone on Friday. All the songs from Thursday sync with the mac once the first song from Friday is played.

So it takes about 24 hours for the lists to sync - which was true even before the updates. During the most recent update on 17.1 NOTHING was syncing at all. Now with 17.2 it is syncing again - but with the 24 hour lag time. Hope that's helpful!

Good morning. I have iphone Pro Max 13 and currently using itunes 12.13.1.3 version. I too was having same issue as many of you have posted. My itunes was not being updated with the plays from my iphone. However, what I have discovered is, if I start the itunes first THEN connect my phone to my desktop pc via usb, the play lists update everytime. It has been working for 2 weeks now so I am very happy.

So start itunes first then connect your phone. I know many of you have different devices with this issue and I hope my discovery might help with your issues. Good luck

Ernie

I FOUND A SOLUTION! I was having this issue for months and it made me crazy. I decided to stop subscribing to Apple Music until they fixed it After my current month expired, it started syncing playcounts perfectly again. I decided to subscribe again, but you don't have to to solve the problem.

I am having this same issue, not only with iPhone, but also with iPad. This is very frustrating because I use several dynamic "smart playlists" that are at least partly based on play counts or recent plays. Since a significant amount of listening is using CarPlay from my iPhone or from my iPad at home the playlists are no longer updating properly which is resulting in certain songs being played too often and others not enough.

Apple please fix this ASAP!

I am having the same issue. The play counts for songs on iPhone not syncing to Mac\Music. It stopped working for me last year some time (or before, judging from the play counts on my Mac). Quite annoying that this problem has been happening for many months now.

I find that it eventually does update, but it may take days before it does so. My thinking is the this is probably suce a compute process, that Apple has not found a simple and elegant solution. It maybe works but ever so slowly.

I have an iPod classic (80gb) and the problem exists with me too. When I sync (plug my iPod into my MacBook) plays on my iPod are not recorded. This has only been happening since mid March but is very frustrating. Any suggestions.

Make sure both devices are logged in correctly at the same Apple ID account. To be sure: stop syncing on both devices and connect again from scratch. Works like charm here now for more than four months between an iPhone 15 Pro and Macbook Pro M1 16". With some slight delay on the line, though.

[ Ger ]

At Apple Support's suggestion I updated my MacBook software to the latest version. Then I synced my iPod and hey presto recently played songs on my iPod appeared in iTunes! However when I looked at my playlists the sync process had unfavourited every song . I can't believe it. I had hundreds of songs favourited (with the heart) and now none are. Any suggestions

What MacOS are you running? 12.7.1 for me.