# Can't transfer music on my iPhone



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Hello,

I can't transfer music onto my iPhone in iTunes 10. I plug it in and it shows up in the left bar but when I click drag songs, the ipod doesn't "light up" in blue and just stays gray and the songs just whip right back into my library without transfering.

Gotta go teach music now and I've gotta lug my damn macbook with me because I can't get my music on my virginal 32 GB iPhone with not a second of music on it! Argg!


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Um.. you need to transfer songs via the iPhone window when the iPhone appears iTunes. It's not done manually via drag and dropping. You didn't know this? See screenshot.


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## shooting_rubber (Mar 22, 2008)

Pat McCrotch said:


> Hello,
> 
> I can't transfer music onto my iPhone in iTunes 10. I plug it in and it shows up in the left bar but when I click drag songs, the ipod doesn't "light up" in blue and just stays gray and the songs just whip right back into my library without transfering.
> 
> Gotta go teach music now and I've gotta lug my damn macbook with me because I can't get my music on my virginal 32 GB iPhone with not a second of music on it! Argg!


If you want to drag and drop specific songs onto your iPhone then you have to do it in iTunes and "manually manage music" has to be checked off under the summary tab when your iPhone is plugged in.


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

Lars said:


> Um.. you need to transfer songs via the iPhone window when the iPhone appears iTunes. It's not done manually via drag and dropping. You didn't know this? See screenshot.


You've always been able to just drag and drop media onto your device in the left hand column of iTunes...


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

irontree said:


> You've always been able to just drag and drop media onto your device in the left hand column of iTunes...


See 'shooting_rubber's response. That isn't the default option.


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## modsuperstar (Nov 23, 2004)

Lars said:


> See 'shooting_rubber's response. That isn't the default option.


The iPod series has always been like that to my knowledge, as far back as I recall with my iPod Mini. You had to manually manage your songs or else you couldn't just drag and drop your songs onto the device.


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

shooting_rubber said:


> If you want to drag and drop specific songs onto your iPhone then you have to do it in iTunes and "manually manage music" has to be checked off under the summary tab when your iPhone is plugged in.


I usually auto-sync my smart playlists but I am also able to drop individual songs into my iPhone without the "manually manage music" box checked off. Can others do this too or is this because my iPhone is jailbroken?


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

In any case, if all else fails, you can sync what you want via the iPhone Music menu.


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## EvoSero (Oct 13, 2010)

Be warned that you cannot put music on your iPhone without some sort of syncing, unfortunately.

As someone who has never liked or wanted to use syncing, this crippling "feature" has all but completely eliminated the iPod functionality of an iPhone.

Specifically, if you connect your iPod to one computer, check "Manage manually" so you can actually put music on it, and then connect your iPhone to a different computer (even if authorized and all the music is ripped anyway), you'll find you cannot put any music on your phone from the second computer, and the "Manage manually" box now appears unchecked.

If you try to check that box now, it will tell you the iPod is synced to another computer, even if under the Music tab you still aren't showing as having synced your music.

In other words, even with manual management, you can only add music/podcasts to your iPhone from one computer. For those like myself who connect and listen to my iPod both at work and at home, it means my iPhone is relatively useless (the other feature I needed was disk use) and I still carry around and rely on my 5-year old iPod 5G.

As noted on this page (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1202):

*iPod shuffle and iPhone are intended for use with a single computer. You cannot load music from multiple computers or iTunes libraries onto iPod shuffle and iPhone like you can with other devices.*


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## angelahill (May 21, 2012)

*Transfer iPhone music*

Ah the tabs are in iTunes, not in the phone. Gotcha. And there is an advert pops up in iTunes when I connect the phone. I had to decline the advert before I saw the music tab and the sync options. 
My HQ VBR MP3s working fine, now, thanks all for your help.
More reviews: 
How to transfer and sync music from iPhone to computer
How to transfer iPhone music/video to Mac OS


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## G-Mo (Sep 26, 2007)

angelahill said:


> Ah the tabs are in iTunes, not in the phone. Gotcha. And there is an advert pops up in iTunes when I connect the phone. I had to decline the advert before I saw the music tab and the sync options.
> My HQ VBR MP3s working fine, now, thanks all for your help.


Zombie Thread!


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## CassieWhitman (Aug 20, 2015)

I just found one of the software I used to use to do this. It's called, "iTools". And it's free. I just transferred an album of music to the iPhone with it. The problem is, the mp3 tag information did not transfer along with. So the artist names do not show, and the songs don't get properly categorized. If this exists, there must be something better out there that will transfer both the songs and their id3 tags from Mac to iPhone.


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## CassieWhitman (Aug 20, 2015)

*sync music to iphone*

I just found one of the software I used to use to do this. It's called, "iTools". And it's free. I just transferred an album of music to the iPhone with it. The problem is, the mp3 tag information did not transfer along with. So the artist names do not show, and the songs don't get properly categorized. If this exists, there must be something better out there that will transfer both the songs and their id3 tags from Mac to iPhone.


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