Are there any adverse effects of scrapping all Music app playlists and rebuilding from scratch from only the song list?

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Are there any adverse effects of scrapping all Music app playlists and rebuilding from scratch from only the song list?

My playlists are getting jumbled. I am mostly successful at maintaining the master database on a Mac. Adding and deleting items from playlists on an iPhone or iPad result in extra playlists created on the Mac that reflect the other devices. They are identified by a suffix of ' 1'. (space one)

Has anyone erased all of their playlists, then gone through the primary song database and recreated the playlists? A tedious chore, to be sure. But since it has never been done in the 20+ years my iTunes/Music database has existed, I reckon it may be needed.

Thoughts?

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Sep 20, 2024 8:16 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

274,610 points

Sep 22, 2024 5:48 AM in response to Ldroadie

Deleting everything from the devices before you work on the library ensures that when you do come to sync up none of the old lists that you've removed come back into the library. Backup the Music Library.musiclibrary database before you start so you can revert if you realise you've deleted something you actually wanted to keep.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,610 points

Sep 21, 2024 11:48 AM in response to Ldroadie

If you rebuild the library from scratch then you lose all ratings, play counts, date added, and playlist information. The issue with device edited playlists syncing back with a trailing digit may occur if the device was initially populated by an older library. Rather than rebuild the whole library what may work is to clean up any duplicate lists, then remove all music content from the device, and take a fresh sync from the library. E.g. From your iPhone use Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Music > Edit > All Songs > Delete to clean everything from the phone. Then sync back. If all goes well future edits should update in either direction without making duplicate lists.

tt2

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Answer 3

Ldroadie Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 21, 2024 10:21 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks!

Your advice is quite helpful!

The intent is not to rebuild the library, only the playlists. I know there are duplicate songs, but it's not clear which song is part of what playlist. Hence the need to reconstruct playlists.

I also need to remove pieces that are no longer useful.

And I would delete all music from the phone/pad devices before starting.

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