Syncing Music with Big Sur

[DCM_UK]

This may help some people out there, it caught me today. I recently upgraded my MacBook Air to Big Sur, previous to this I could sync my iPhone 8 to Apple Music via Apple Music itself, since the Big Sur upgrade this is no longer possible, Apple Music does not recognise the phone, you now have to use Finder, it is easy to do, all explained in this link Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod with your computer.
The annoying thing is that I don't recall a warning about this.

 

[ferrarr]

I've been using Finder since Music, TV, & Podcasts replaced iTunes in Catalina last year.

 

[chscag]

The annoying thing is that I don't recall a warning about this.

What version of macOS were you using before upgrading to Big Sur? Apple did away with iTunes after Mojave. From Catalina on, the Music app is separate.

 

[IWT]

@DCM_UK

The iPhone 8 will take the latest version of iOS, which is 14.6

iOS 14.6 is definitely compatible with macOS 11 Big Sur - latest version is 11.4

Therefore syncing your iPhone 8 should work perfectly. Simple things first: reboot the MacBook Air. Restart the iPhone 8.

Connect the iPhone 8 via its USB cable to the Mac. Open Finder. In the Sidebar you should see the iPhone 8 listed under Locations. Click on it. Wait a moment or two till it loads.

You should then see this:



Click on whichever header you wish. To sync music, click on "Music" and so on.

Is this what you are doing? Can you tell us which part of the process described above isn't working for you, please?

Ian

 

[Rod]

DCM_UK, I'm sure that your post will be of help to those who have taken the big step of upgrading macOS to Big Sur from say Mojave or earlier. It was a real topic of conversation when Apple made this move back in Sept 2020 with the release of macOS Catalina.
For those of us here on our 3rd or 4th version of Big Sur it's kind of old news but thats not to say that there may be plenty of users who are experiencing this radical change for the first time. If you do a search for articles about Apple splitting Music into three seperate apps you will see how much general confusion this caused at the time.
Anyway well done working it out and don't stop posting stuff.

 

[Howard Brazee]

My problem is that synchronizing gets stuck every couple of days and I can't even shut down my Mac, because finder is busy.

 

[ferrarr]

My problem is that synchronizing gets stuck every couple of days and I can't even shut down my Mac, because finder is busy.

You can Force Quit Finder, if you want to restart.