Sync lossless files through iCloud?

Question

Level 1

13 points

Sync lossless files through iCloud?

I recently purchased an iPhone. I already had a MacBook and an older iPod and iPad.

I'm used to copying music from my Mac to my iPad and iPod by going into iTunes and dragging it to the device. I can also manage the music on the device in iTunes with the help of the column browser, used for viewing stuff *on the device* (not just on my local Mac).

My goal is to have lossess, WAV, or AIFF files on the iPhone for highest quality.

I recently upgraded my Macbook to Catalina, and I no longer know how to view music on the device with the column browser, making it difficult or impossible to manage directly. So I decided to try syncing through iCloud and just expecting my phone to show the same music.

Now I learn that lossless files won't sync through iCloud, that it replaces them with an AAC 256kbps version when it downloads them to the phone. Is that true? Is there any way to put a lossless file on the phone through syncing?

iPhone 12

Posted on Jan 8, 2022 5:40 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Jimzgoldfinch

Level 7

28,429 points

Jan 10, 2022 12:27 AM in response to mike1127

mike1127 wrote:

Okay, I'll try upgrading to Big Sur. But I wanted to clarify something. I don't want to purchase lossless music from Apple. I don't want an Apple subscription. I just want to sync using ICloud.

Hi,

Apple does not sell lossless music. It provides lossless music as part of the Apple Music subscription. With this, you use iCloud music library. Turn on Sync Library with Apple Music – Apple Support (UK)

Without a subscription to can sync Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with your computer - Apple Support as previously mentioned by Ed.

With regards the music app on the iPhone, I suggest Feedback - Apple Music - Apple

Jim

Reply

Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

62,858 points

Jan 9, 2022 6:25 AM in response to mike1127

Is there any way to put a lossless file on the phone through syncing?

Mike,

Yes. Instead of using cloud syncing, connect via USB and sync directly:

Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with your computer - Apple Support

This will put the same files onto the phone that are in your iTunes/Music library.

Reply

Answer 3

mike1127 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 9, 2022 9:12 PM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

Okay, I'll try upgrading to Big Sur. But I wanted to clarify something. I don't want to purchase lossless music from Apple. I don't want an Apple subscription. I just want to sync using ICloud. Syncing directly is a problem because it's hard to manage music on the IPhone since they took away the abilty to column-browse the iPhone or iPod or modify tags directly on the iPhone/iPod.

Reply

Answer 4

mike1127 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 9, 2022 9:17 PM in response to ed2345

I did discover this, but the ability to manage songs on the device is horrible, unless there's something I'm missing. There's no way to column-browse the songs. The songs display with very few columns of data so there's not much to sort on. What I used to do is use the column-browser to choose what songs to delete when space got tight. There are still probably hacks that can be done. For example I can sort on "last played", so if I want to delete specific songs, I would want to play them on the iPhone, then go to the Finder and sort on "Last played" etc. I do have a 128 GB iPhone -- this replaces my 32 GB iPod, so maybe space won't be a problem any more.

P.S. by column-broswer I mean the ability to select "Genre" as a filter, then "Composer" within Genre, then "Artist", then "Album". I'm not referring just to the fact that songs display with sortable columns in the Finder (only about 4 of them). That is less useful because you can only sort on one column at a time, not use multiple columns as filters.

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 9, 2022 12:13 AM in response to mike1127

Hi,

You need MacOS Big Sur or Monterey on your computer to get Apple Music lossless.

Jim

Reply

Sync lossless files through iCloud?

Similar questions