How do I put .m4a audio files onto an iPhone?

[thebart]

I'm a MacOS newbie. Please be kind

I have a M1 mini, ventura. I have a bunch of m4a audio files (lectures) I need to put on my mom's iphone for her.

This is something that absurdly I've never figured out how to do with an iphone. I just want to plug the iphone in my computer and somehow drag and drop a bunch of files into the right place and boom it shows up in the Music app in the right playlist.

On the PC, I could not figure out how to do this with iTunes (the only apple software I ever used as a PC guy and it's one of the worst things I've ever seen). It wants to sync my library? No. I don't want to sync my music library to my mom's phone. I never figured iTunes out. Apparently, I am not alone because there's an app for this called copy trans manager. It lets you manage the music library on a connected iphone with an explorer^W finder like interface.

Fast forward to today. I now own a mac. Surely this is going to be easier somehow? I plugged the phone in, it showed up as a mount in Finder (promising!), but *facepalm* the iTunes interface again. *insert nervous guy pushing button meme* I clicked on sync and it asked if I wanted to erase the phone's content or something like that. NOOOOO.

I googled copy trans manager for mac. "There is no copy trans for mac. It was made for windows, but you can use a VM..." Argghh

Once in a while out of curiosity I'd ask an iphone user how they put music on their iphone and they're like what I just stream or download from spotify or whatever. But they assure me there must be a way to do what I'm asking.

So I ask you: how, please?

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

Instead of adding the audio files to the Music Library, you could send the files to iPhone by AirDrop. In this way the iPhone treats them as regular files and can be managed/played right in the Files app in the iPhone.

You could also install a 3rd party player app on the iPhone (via App Store). Those apps often provide easier file transfer functions that are not require syncing with Finder.

 

[Nermal]

Unfortunately this is one of those things that Apple half-implemented but never fully sorted out. Back in the iPod days the iPod was "dumb" and was designed to mirror whatever was in iTunes. Early iPhones worked the same way, and required an iTunes connection to work. Then in iOS 5 (I think) Apple introduced "PC Free", allowing the phone to be managed independently... but never extended this to music.

 

[MacCheetah3]

As @Nermal pointed out, Apple never refined manual/selective management for music and movies — movies are somewhat better now but music and other audio is still a convoluted pain.

Anyway...

How to Manually Add Music to Your iPhone

You can put music on your iPhone by choosing which ones to sync. iTunes, by default, copies all music automatically, but you can change that.

www.lifewire.com

Regarding alternate apps:

iMazing | iPhone, iPad & iPod Manager for Mac & PC

iMazing lets you transfer music, files, messages, apps and more from any iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer, Mac or PC. Manage and backup your iOS device simply without iTunes. (was DiskAid)

imazing.com

I haven’t used it in a long time, and don’t recall the specifics.

 

[thebart]

What a weird state of affairs. I've never liked iOS because of its sand boxed file system. One of the reasons I never buy ithings for myself. I realize there are professionals who do real work with an iphone/ipad and I'm mystified how they deal with it.

I searched some more and there are a few copy trans alternatives for mac. They all cost money, of course. Seems like every little thing I want to do on a Mac costs $10-$20. I'll just use the airdrop thing and move things around on the phone, I guess

 

[NoBoMac]

A couple of possible hacks...

I'm using iTunes Match, so can't get to the default Music tab for my iDevices in Finder, but, option to specify a different Music library (been about a decade since I've seen that interface)? If so, setup a separate library for mom stuff and sync it.

Or: create a second account on the machine for mom sync. Will have a separate Music library to sync to and can add the audio files to her library.

Or: if not using any Apple cloud music services, can always add the files to your library, create a mom playlist and just sync that playlist to her phone. There is the option of sync "full library" or "select what".

 

[MmkLucario]

If I remember correctly, iMazing Mini come with the free version of iMazing, and you can drag and drop files and it’ll automatically install them for you.

 

[EedyBeedyBeeps]

I'm not 100% sure this idea is relevant, but it could be another way to get the files to her in a playlist-like order, via the Notes app on your M1 Mini:

1 - Create a new note in the macOS Ventura Notes app.
2 - Drag an drop the m4a files from Finder into that note.
3 - Airdrop, email, or send her that note.

It's obviously not an ideal method. Some things to consider:

- I think she would need to use the Notes app to start each file manually, one after the other. But they'd at least be arranged in the "playlist" order within that note.
- She should be able to see what's playing via Control Center on her iPhone or the lock screen on her iPhone. But she'd have to use the 15-second fast-forward or rewind buttons to navigate within each audio file.
- She can navigate other apps while a file is playing and she should still hear audio. But if she tries to open another note within the Notes app, the audio would likely stop playing.

 

[bogdanw]

Don't use Music. Install VLC on the iPhone, from the Mac you can add the m4a files directly into VLC.

 

[thebart]

Don't use Music. Install VLC on the iPhone, from the Mac you can add the m4a files directly into VLC.

She's used to the Music app. But yeah you're right the Music app is actually a bad fit for audio files. O the irony.

Speaking of which, there's no way to delete all the files in a playlist from the device?

I think the iphone's reputation for user friendliness is unearned. I think iphones are actually hard to use. For example, not having a back button means you can't just blindly hit back to get yourself out of whatever state you don't want to be in or know how to got yourself in. The gestures are convoluted. Several times my mom got into a split screen on her iPad somehow and not know how to get out of it. I couldn't figure it out without googling. I don't know how she even got into it by accident. I think I ended up disabling it in settings. The "simplicity" of the home screen means people like my mom end up endlessly hunting for their app swiping through 4, 5 screens of icons. Putting things in folders just means staring at smaller icons. With the app drawer you can leave only your most used apps on the home screen and you'll at least have all your apps in alpha order in the drawer. But I'm sure people with iphones think android is hard to use. Often it's just a matter of what you're used to.

What they are is pretty (I mean the UI, not just the hardware). I think aesthetics have a lot to do with the feeling of ease of use. That's a compliment, not a knock on Apple. The UI is cohesive, as they like to say on Project Runway. The way apple products work together is cohesive. Airpods work really seamlessly (except when they don't). But Apple's hiding of complexity often makes things harder, not easier. Especially when you try to do anything off the apple-paved roads.

I picked an interesting time to get my first mac -- when they have an exciting new hardware architecture but the system is more locked down than ever and MacOS is becoming more iOS like. Still unsure if I want to be here.

 

[MmkLucario]

Speaking of which, there's no way to delete all the files in a playlist from the device?

Couldn’t you just delete the playlist and it would delete the files automatically?

 

[acorntoy]

If your willing to pay, Waltr does a fantastic job of forcing weird file types into working onto the standard IOS apps.
I've used it for many years to put non .mp4 (MKV ETC) into the standard video app without converting. It only converts as a last measure, from my experience it almost always copies the original file into the standard IOS apps. used to use it to force HEVC (when Apple adopted it but didn't yet allow files on itunes). I now use it to upload lossless MKV HDR Blu-ray rips to my devices, it preserves the HDR file perfectly and plays correctly, from the standard videos app.

WALTR PRO | Transfer ANY File into Your iPhone

Discover WALTR PRO—your all-in-one tool for seamless file transfers from your computer to any Apple device. Convert, transfer, and enjoy media effortlessly.

softorino.com

 

[acorntoy]

Couldn’t you just delete the playlist and it would delete the files automatically?

You have to go into the playlist that you downloaded and select "remove download" (much as you selected to download the playlist) to get rid of the files, if you delete the playlist before doing this you will be hunting for downloaded files and deleting them for a long,long time depending on the size of the playlist.

 

[izzy0242mr]

I'm a MacOS newbie. Please be kind

I have a M1 mini, ventura. I have a bunch of m4a audio files (lectures) I need to put on my mom's iphone for her.

This is something that absurdly I've never figured out how to do with an iphone. I just want to plug the iphone in my computer and somehow drag and drop a bunch of files into the right place and boom it shows up in the Music app in the right playlist.

On the PC, I could not figure out how to do this with iTunes (the only apple software I ever used as a PC guy and it's one of the worst things I've ever seen). It wants to sync my library? No. I don't want to sync my music library to my mom's phone. I never figured iTunes out. Apparently, I am not alone because there's an app for this called copy trans manager. It lets you manage the music library on a connected iphone with an explorer^W finder like interface.

Fast forward to today. I now own a mac. Surely this is going to be easier somehow? I plugged the phone in, it showed up as a mount in Finder (promising!), but *facepalm* the iTunes interface again. *insert nervous guy pushing button meme* I clicked on sync and it asked if I wanted to erase the phone's content or something like that. NOOOOO.

I googled copy trans manager for mac. "There is no copy trans for mac. It was made for windows, but you can use a VM..." Argghh

Once in a while out of curiosity I'd ask an iphone user how they put music on their iphone and they're like what I just stream or download from spotify or whatever. But they assure me there must be a way to do what I'm asking.

So I ask you: how, please?

EDIT: Ignore me. I thought you were syncing her phone with her computer. Sounds like she doesn't have a computer to sync with.

iOS sucks. (Reddit confirming there is no way to add audio files to show up in the Music app without syncing to a computer or having bought the audio file from Apple and downloading via iCloud.)

 

[jagolden]

iTune and/or Music app are not difficult to use.
The issue is OP’s unfamiliarity with it, understandable because he’s a PC person.
All the answers and suggestions are useful but he’s still going to have to spend some time with them.

 

[thebart]

iTune and/or Music app are not difficult to use.
The issue is OP’s unfamiliarity with it, understandable because he’s a PC person.
All the answers and suggestions are useful but he’s still going to have to spend some time with them.

I think the thread shows I actually have a good grasp of iTunes and Music's limitations. They don't work the way I want to use them for and I need other workarounds.

 

[McScooby]

I think the thread shows I actually have a good grasp of iTunes and Music's limitations. They don't work the way I want to use them for and I need other workarounds.

It's not like you couldn't create your Mom as a user on your computer & use her profile to sync music to her iPhone. Or (even though I haven't tried it) share a music playlist with her. As mad as some stuff seems, it's there for a reason.