How can I transfer music to my iPhone without syncing?

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Level 1

4 points

How can I transfer music to my iPhone without syncing?

I would like to transfer selected tracks to my phone without synching my phone to my M3 MBP (500GB SSD). I have 2 MBPs and the newer one has a small Macintosh HD. The old one (2012) has 2 x 2TB SSDs.

Of course I do most of my work on my newer M3 MBP. So it would be convenient to transfer tracks without the need for synching. My iPhone has 256GB so the MBP having only 500GB is not practical for synching the phone.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone XS, iOS 17

Posted on Sep 27, 2024 9:52 PM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

274,610 points

Sep 28, 2024 8:35 AM in response to I am Duug

For reasons unknown (probably even to them) Apple have arranged things such that an iPhone can only be manually managed (the alternative to syncing) with a single library. If content that is already on the phone isn't in the library being used to add content it will likely be deleted from the device, potentially without any warning. See Make a split library portable - Apple Community and Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for some general advice. You should be able to put your entire library in a portable form on an external drive that can be moved between computers running the same build of macOS. Alternatively you could subscribe to Apple Music, matching or uploading your current library from the older computer, then you could use the new one to selectively add to your cloud library, which would also appear on your device, without using too much local storage.

tt2

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