User profile for user: garthriot
garthriot Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

My play counts on Apple Music doesn't update to MacBook

I recently transitioned from iTunes to Apple Music, and everything works well and good, except for one major pet peeve. Any time I play something on Apple Music from a device that isn't my Macbook (where my Apple

Music is set up), the play counts don't update. This is more or less the one hesitation I had with moving over to Apple Music because I didn't know how play counts were handled, and from what I can find online, it seems like people were having issues with this a lot in the end of 2023 and start of 2024, but I haven't seen anyone submit any recent issues or updates about this. Am I doing something wrong? I've tried everything from making sure the same account is logged in on both devices, to turning on home sharing on my laptop, to updating my iPhone, to restarting my devices but to no avail. Am I missing some kind of step or is this just something Apple Music doesn't support (anymore)? I might have to switch back to iTunes if this isn't something that'll ever get fixed or updated because it's really important to me.

iPhone SE, iOS 18

Posted on Apr 13, 2025 1:05 PM

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User profile for user: garthriot
garthriot Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Apr 13, 2025 6:36 PM in response to garthriot

I figured out a solution for this that worked for me, but you need an I-Pod that's up to date enough and uses Apple Music. I personally have a renewed 7th gen. If you restore the I-Pod, you just need to immediately turn off Sync Library in the settings for the Apple music app, and you can download music from your Apple Music library to it, and the play counts aren't an issue. I tested it after I synced it, and the play count transitioned like it did with iTunes. I'm assuming the play count issue has to either be an issue with iPhones and the current update, or it's an issue with music being played off the Cloud that isn't downloaded directly into the device you're using, or the problem is a bit of both. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge for people who've used MacBook for a while; this is my first one and recently discovered iTunes isn't compatible with it and had to transition over to Apple Music.

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My play counts on Apple Music doesn't update to MacBook

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