How to Create an iPhone Playlist

How to Create an iPhone Playlist
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iTunes Playlists on iPhone

One great feature of iPhone is the iPod app that comes with it. Storing all of your music on your phone can make it hard to find the songs you want to listen to. iTunes playlists help you sort your music into groups, making your music more organized and easier to find. In the past, the only way to create playlists for iPhone was to use your computer to create one on your iTunes account. The playlist would then be transferred the next time you synced your iPhone to the computer. However, with a recent iPhone software upgrade Apple gave us the ability to create a playlist on iPhone without using a computer. I’ll walk you through how to create iPhone playlists and edit them after you’ve made them.

Create iPhone Playlist for iTunes

To create iPhone playlists, you’ll need to have music downloaded to your phone’s iPod. Adding music to your phone is simple. You’ll just need to sync iPhone with iTunes to transfer the music you already have on your computer or download music from iTunes directly from your phone. As long as you have music in the iPod, you’ll be able to create iPhone playlists.

1. Open the iPod app.

2. Along the bottom of the screen, select Playlists.

3. At the top of the screen, select Add Playlist.

4. A text bubble pops up asking you to name the playlist. Choose a name for your list and press save.

Create iPhone Playlist

5. After you press save, you are taken to a list of all your songs. Each song name has an add button (the + symbol) to the right of it. Press the + button to add that song to the playlist. The song name will appear slightly grey after it has been added to the list, but you are not given any other confirmation.

Add Songs to Playlist

6. Once you’ve selected all the songs you’d like on the list, press done (at the top right corner).

Completed Playlist

7. You are done creating your iPhone playlist. A list of all the songs you chose will be displayed along with the playlist name.

Edit iPhone Playlists

Playlists made on your computer have to be edited from your computer, you won’t be able to edit them from your iPhone. You can, however, edit iTunes playlists that were created on your iPhone.

1. Open the iPod app.

2. Along the bottom of the screen, select Playlists.

3. Find and select the name of the playlist you’d like to edit.

4. At the top of the list of songs on the playlist, press edit. See screenshot below for the edit playlist menu.

Edit Playlist menu

To Add More Songs

Press the “+” symbol button at the top left side of the screen. This will take you to a list of the songs on your iPhone. Select the songs you’d like to add and then press done at the top right side of the screen after you’ve made your selections.

Add Songs to Playlist

To Delete Songs

Red circles will appear to the left of each song. Press the circle for the song you’d like to remove. A delete button will appear to the right of the song title. Press delete to remove the song from the list.

Delete songs from playlist

Delete iPhone Playlists

Only playlists created on iPhone can be deleted from your phone. To delete an iPhone playlist, open the playlist in iTunes. At the top of the screen, press delete. A confirmation will popup at the bottom of the screen. Press “Delete Playlist”.

Delete iPhone playlist

If you’d like to clear a playlist out and start over, open the playlist in iTunes. At the top of the screen, press clear. A confirmation will popup at the bottom of the screen. Press “Clear Playlist”. You can then add songs to the playlist using the edit instructions above.

Clear playlist

References

“iPhone User Guide”, Apple. https://support.apple.com/manuals/