This guide will show you a nifty workaround to fix the issue of being unable to sync the music from iPhone to Mac on iOS 17. The seventeenth iteration of the OS has brought a truckload of new goodies and some intriguing features to the fore. On the flip side though, it seems to have paved the way for the entry of a few bugs, one among which is affecting the USP of the devices- aka the closely-knit ecosystem where all devices and their data are synced in a streamlined manner.
In this regard, numerous users have voiced their concern [see below] that they are unable to sync their music from iPhone over to Mac on iOS 17. Whenever they are trying to do so, they are stuck on ‘preparing to sync’. Likewise, when they connect their device to a Mac and open Finder, the entire music directory appears to be blank. If you are also facing this issue, then this guide will make you aware of a couple of nifty workarounds to rectify this bug. Follow along.
Here’s a list of issues that users are facing with regards to Music sync:
-Until 2 weeks ago I was using an iPhone 14 Pro Max (running iOS 16) and a 2020 MacBook Pro (running MacOS 13)
-2 weeks ago I updated my iPhone to a beta version of iOS 17 which is when some issues began – when trying to sync music from my MacBook to my iPhone it kept getting stuck on ‘preparing to sync’ (I’m not using Apple Music streaming – all of my music is purchased) – I was able to work around this by unplugging and replugging in the USB and eventually it would sync.
-Today my new iPhone 15 Pro Max arrived and I also updated my MacBook software to MacOS 14, hoping this would remove the issue, but it has persisted on the new iPhone and with the new MacOS.
-Initially, all music synced to my new iPhone butI noticed some of the album art was wrong so I deleted the albums directly from the iPhone with the intention of syncing them back on (around 5 albums).
-However, they will not sync back to the phone. I’ve tried removing all music from the iPhone and syncing it again but the problem persists – it will sync all 8000ish songs except the 5 albums I deleted from the iPhone directly. I’ve done this many times with previous iPhones when album art has been wrong and it’s always resynced back on.
-The sync settings clearly state that I want to sync my entire Apple Music library to the iPhone
Table of Contents
Fix Cannot Sync Music from iPhone to Mac on iOS 17
It is recommended that you try out each of the below-mentioned workarounds and then see which one spells out success. So with that in mind, let’s get started.
FIX 1: Toggle Bluetooth
- If you have an Apple Watch, then disconnect it from your iPhone/Mac for now.
- Then bring up the Control Center on your iPhone and toggle off Bluetooth.
- Now plug your iPhone into MacBook/iMac and select Sync.
- Check if you are able to sync the music from iPhone to Mac on iOS 17.
FIX 2: Toggle Sync Library
For a subset of users, the only tweak that worked was heading over to their Music settings, turning on “sync library” for a few minutes, and then turning it off. After that, they connected their lightning cable and the sync started. So do give this tweak a try and check out the results.
That’s it. These were a couple of handy workarounds to fix the issue of being unable to sync the music from iPhone to Mac on iOS 17. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
