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iphone will not download music from itunes on sync.

how do i force itunes to download my library to my iphone 7. i use windows10 and do the sync and the itunes says it is first backing up (annoying it does it every time) then it says determining items to sync, then preparing, then when it gets to copying nothing is copied or downloaded to the phone. have tried everything i can think of and so far nothing has worked. please advise or help . the old itunes had sync menus in the options, the new versions do not.

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Dec 22, 2021 8:27 AM

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Posted on Dec 24, 2021 12:02 PM

finally got phone to copy songs from my itunes library to my phone. i had to turn of sync on my phone, and turn off sync on the pc . the phone was only syncing songs from my icloud library and not my itunes on my computer. when i turned on the icloud music on my pc in itunes preferences my itunes library on my pc doubled in size with a option to download the songs to my computer, which were already there. this was what tier 2 had suggested, so i cancelled that and unchecked that option. then i canceled the auto sync in itunes on my pc, and when i did the old menu options as to what to sync came up, with the option to sync my own personal single itunes library. now begins the process of copying 6000 plus songs back onto my phone. this whole issue started because of the greyed out circles and favorite songs that when i tried to play them said they weren't synced to itunes on my computer. they were, and the phone was wrong. took all this work to fix it. thanks for everyone who helped. me out. no one ever did get the right answer, but your advice got me thinking on new lines which finally worked. so i do appreciate all your efforts, and wish you all a merry christmas as well. especially thanks to "the friend" who actually caused me to rethink a few steps and find the right solution. take care all. k.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 24, 2021 12:02 PM in response to the fiend

finally got phone to copy songs from my itunes library to my phone. i had to turn of sync on my phone, and turn off sync on the pc . the phone was only syncing songs from my icloud library and not my itunes on my computer. when i turned on the icloud music on my pc in itunes preferences my itunes library on my pc doubled in size with a option to download the songs to my computer, which were already there. this was what tier 2 had suggested, so i cancelled that and unchecked that option. then i canceled the auto sync in itunes on my pc, and when i did the old menu options as to what to sync came up, with the option to sync my own personal single itunes library. now begins the process of copying 6000 plus songs back onto my phone. this whole issue started because of the greyed out circles and favorite songs that when i tried to play them said they weren't synced to itunes on my computer. they were, and the phone was wrong. took all this work to fix it. thanks for everyone who helped. me out. no one ever did get the right answer, but your advice got me thinking on new lines which finally worked. so i do appreciate all your efforts, and wish you all a merry christmas as well. especially thanks to "the friend" who actually caused me to rethink a few steps and find the right solution. take care all. k.

Dec 24, 2021 8:31 AM in response to kendo53

kendo53 wrote:

iPods are designed to take music and for whatever strange reason they work well. iPhone it’s a problem that I’m having and not an iPod.

In this respect, there is no difference between an iPod and an iPhone.


have tried everything i can think of and so far nothing has worked. please advise or help . the old itunes had sync menus in the options, the new versions do not.

... and the only reasonable reply to that and your chat with a tier 2 agent is "then give up", but neither of us here have suggested that. As for the old iTunes and its sync options, I don't know which menus you're referring to (that are no longer available) and I've been using iTunes for a long time.


I suggest that you start again - and consider the points carefully without your pre-judgement:

and they got rid of all the various sync options at the same time which used to work good. this version is seriously flawed but i think apple does this just to force people to do everything in the cloud since that way they have more control of the person's music.


Connect you iPod to iTunes and click on the iPhone icon when it appears (the one tt2 pointed to) - and yes, the icon may be different to the one you see below because my one shows an iPod Classic:


  • that displays the Device/Settings/Summary pane
  • select the Device/Settings/Music pane (1.), which then shows you a screen similar to the one shown below:


  • Make sure that the Sync Music box (2.) is ticked (checked)
  • item 3.
    • if you select Entire music library (3.), you will not see the options shown in 4.
    • if you select Selected Playlists, artists, albums and genres, section 4 appears. You then choose which items from those categories, that you want to Sync to your phone. If you do not select anything, nothing will be added to the phone
  • once you have made your choices in step (3.) above, you need to click the Sync (or Apply) button in the lower right corner of the window (not shown in the screenshot). Again, until you do that, nothing will be added to the phone


As far as I'm concerned, this represents the old Sync options to which you refer. If the above does not work, then please state at which point in those instructions the process fails to work as expected. Then we can move forward.


Things to check though, if the above fails to work:

  • in your Library, are the individual songs ticked (checked)? look in the Songs view. If not, and you have Sync only ticked songs and videos selected (on the Device/Settings/Summary pane), that's why there is a problem
  • if you are using Apple Music, or the cloud, it will help if you mention it



Dec 22, 2021 9:50 PM in response to turingtest2

did that. all the syncs are set. wouldn't do it still. talked to a tier 2 agent and she had me turn on icloud in preferences general. all this did was double the listed songs in itunres and give me the option to download one at a time in itunres to my pc. still no more music on the iphone which is what i am trying to do. will likely just give up on this issue since there seems to be no resolution. the old itunes never had a problem, this one big time. not much of an improvement in my mind. once again thanks apple for creating more problems with the updates than there were before. and they got rid of all the various sync options at the same time which used to work good. this version is seriously flawed but i think apple does this just to force people to do everything in the cloud since that way they have more control of the person's music.

Dec 23, 2021 11:39 AM in response to kendo53

Before you give up on iTunes, take into account that the Sync options to which you refer do still exist and I (for one) can still copy music from my iTunes library to my iPod. Pay particular attention to the links that tt2 has provided.


iTunes is now more complicated, I grant you (Apple music and the cloud) and they don't help, but there must be a solution to your issue since others can achieve it.

iphone will not download music from itunes on sync.

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