Music app syncing from Mac mini to iPhone is taking too long

“USB 3.2 syncing cable did the trick. Loaded about 400g (I left some playlists off this sync) onto my iPhone and it took about an hour. Thanks so much”

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You are welcome. Excellent job troubleshooting and performing this! That’s quite an impressive amount to have been taken up and then cleared!

As for that cable, 3.2 is the standard, and having faster cables may not always do the trick. But, it’s great to know that it did for this!

USB 3.2 syncing cable did the trick. Loaded about 400g (I left some playlists off this sync) onto my iPhone and it took about an hour. Thanks so much

"Music app syncing from Mac mini to iPhone is taking too long: [...]but this time leaving out the playlists that contain the 2 artists that have the work field filled out.[...]"

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Lagging and Stalled iPhone-to-Mac Transfer:

A. What's the Method of Transfer:

How are you transferring this? If through WiFi or Ethernet, then it may be heavy traffic within. If through a cable, it may be that you need a water USB cable(USB3.2), and have your Mac plugged in while this is performed.

B,. Recreate the Playlist:

Ultimately, it might be a corrupt file (the playlist). So, recreate this playlist.

B. Troubleshooting iPhone Storage:

Being the is slow, you should look into clearing storage on your iPhone. As storage increases, it will ultimate stall once at 100% full to maximum capacity (in which case a restore or a Factory Reset would be needed). So, see about clearing space in your iPhone's storage.

Clearing iPhone Space:

Internal storage cannot be upgraded. It is what it is. So, the maximum internal storage capacity never increases, even if you upgraded your iCloud plan. Learn More here: What's the Difference Between Device Storage and iCloud Storage? Apple Support

So, what to do...

Clear Space Using my User Tips:

• How to Clear Space from your Mobile Device, and What to Clear: - User Tip
• How to Clear "System Data" in your iPhone's Storage: - User Tip

“[…]Yes I’m trying to sync less and take stuff off my iPhone like photos and videos. But it doesn’t seem this is causing the issue”

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Clear Space Using my User Tips:

Little storage place remaining can play a key roll. The less storage you have, the slower it will become. As you go about using your iPhone, it will create caches, which is seen as System Data in your storage. So, clear the system data. If you don’t, then you’d have to factor reset your iPhone(but that is a last resort only. So see about clearing System Data, on your iPhone and your Mac:

• How to Clear "System Data" in your iPhone's Storage: - User Tip

• How to Use Finder to Clear “System Data" on a Mac - User Tip

Ok a little follow up to this and just want to present some info that may helps others.

The slow syncing issue is still resolved. However, when I did my first sync with the USB 3.2 cable, the tail end of the sync did get hung up and I had to force quit Finder as it was freezing. It went through all the steps of the sync process, throughout step 4 I saw song names popping up while the status bar filled up. But after that I was stuck on another step that said something about album artwork, it was like that for hours (I left my phone plugged in over night and had checked it as I got up a few times). It must have been when I force quitted Finder or something else, but after that sync, the playlist issue I mentioned before happened again. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of songs were randomly wiped from playlists, at no specific order. I did another sync after this (not realizing what had happened) and synced some playlists I had left out of the first sync, and those playlists remained fine and the sync process went smooth unlike the first.

This playlist glitch was a major issue for me about 6 months ago (maybe I tried a corded sync then too when this happened?), but I was able to resolve it like I mentioned by pulling a previous version of my library and extracting the playlist files to build my playlists back to how they were (or as best as I can). This was a long process..

Now today, I planned to do that again. However, I did something smart before I did my most recent sync (well the first of the 2 I mentioned from a few days ago). I backed up my .musiclibrary file (created a duplicate). So now that this issue happened, I can just reopen that duplicated file that was before the sync (hold option & open Music, select file), and try the sync again and hope all is fixed. If it happens again I may have to remove all the music from my iPhone, then resync from scratch again. Either way just wanted to make this point, as this is something I will get in the habit of doing now:

Back up your .musiclibrary file before every sync to your devices! It can save you hours of work and headaches.

“[…]Back up your .musiclibrary file before every sync to your devices! It can save you hours of work and headaches.”

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As I mentioned here.

I am syncing over WiFi right now. I tried syncing via usb cable a few months ago but I noticed no change. I will try again with that 3.2 cable

All of my playlists (100s) have been recreated over the last year due to a glitch that occurred one day (was missing random songs from each playlist). Found a backup library file I had, pulled each playlist from there, then imported as a new playlist and removed the old. So they should all be fine. If not how I can tell if a playlist is corrupted?

So only from the latest attempted sync, my iPhone would be at almost 100% storage capacity. Usually it is around 80% to which this issue still occurs. Yes I’m trying to sync less and take stuff off my iPhone like photos and videos. But it doesn’t seem this is causing the issue

“All of my playlists (100s) have been recreated over the last year due to a glitch that occurred one day (was missing random songs from each playlist). Found a backup library file I had, pulled each playlist from there, then imported as a new playlist and removed the old. So they should all be fine. If not how I can tell if a playlist is corrupted?“

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Excellent job troubleshooting this extract!

Determining if a Playlist is Corrupted.

You Can’t. This not a feature a feature of Music and TV and iTunes. So, that is why to duplicate for backup, and the export item from within it.