Help needed - importing MP3's to Apple Music

[Mont Blanc]

Would anyone be able to explain to me, in really really simple terms, how I can import MP3 files into Apple Music on my MacBook, and therefore have them appear in an Apple Music playlist on my iPhone?

I have managed to import the MP3's into Apple Music on my MacBook, and they play fine in there. I have then created a playlist on Apple Music and added them to that, but the playlist does not appear on my phone.

All my playlists created on my phone appear on the MacBook, but not the other way round... If I create a playlist in Apple Music desktop, it does not appear on my phone.

If I drag and drop the MP3's in desktop Apple Music into a playlist that already exists on my phone, it actually deletes the whole playlist off my phone?! WTF?

Can anyone help please!

[eeLee]

Not that I do this but I assume you can File-Import the MP3s into Apple Music and then sync to the iPhone. I assume you're not using iCloud so it would be iTunes sync which is now native to macOS that will help you.

I have not connected my iPhone to my Mac in more than 10 years but this is what I see after a first opening of Music on the thing.....

[mattley]

Apple broke this some time ago. You might be able to drag and drop individual albums using finder but they'll disappear from the phone next sync.

[funinhounslow]

I think iTunes Match will do what you want

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108935

It’s included in an Apple Music subscription or you can just pay for Match separately. It will automatically convert your MP3s to AAC format.

[Mont Blanc]

mattley said:

Apple broke this some time ago. You might be able to drag and drop individual albums using finder but they'll disappear from the phone next sync.

Thats what I read... It is annoying.

But, weirdly, after a few days, the playlists that I created on the Mac have suddenly appeared on my iPhone, AND the tracks that I imported as MP3's are there.

How odd.

[Mont Blanc]

funinhounslow said:

I think iTunes Match will do what you want

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108935

It’s included in an Apple Music subscription or you can just pay for Match separately. It will automatically convert your MP3s to AAC format.

If it was just ordinary albums or songs I would just be listening to them right off my apple music subscription and not doing any mucking about, but:

These MP3's are all 1-2 hour long live DJ mix recordings from nightclubs. I found a heap of them on an old hard drive and was very pleased about it!

But, thankfully as per the above, this has resolved itself now, strangely. It took a couple of days for the MP3's and playlist to show up on my phone in Apple Music, after dragging them into Apple Music on the Mac.

The only possible explanation for this is that there was about 12 files, all around 1.5 hours long each, so maybe it just took time to sync such a large amount of data via wifi, and then I noticed it had just appeared.