Cannot play local files from PC/Mac on iPhone

[SoshJam]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone 13 Pro, multiple Windows and Mac computers

Operating System

iOS 16.0, Windows 11, MacOS Monterey

My Question or Issue

Hey all, I have been racking my brain all day trying to solve this problem. I've written some music and I'd like to be able to play it on all of my devices. I've been able to do this before with music I created about a year ago, just by following the provided instructions to add the local file to my library and download it on other devices. But that is no longer working.

Here's what I've been trying:

1. Ensure all of my Spotify clients are up to date
2. Ensure all of my devices are on the same Wi-Fi network.
3. Place the mp3 file in my Music/Spotify folder on my computer, which makes it show up in the Local Files area
4. Add the music to a playlist
5. Go on my iPhone and download the playlist
6. The song would then be added to the library on my iPhone and I would be able to play it.

This worked about a year ago, but it's not working anymore. The playlist downloads just fine, but the local song stays greyed out and unplayable.

This doesn't work between computers either. If I manually share the file to each device (e.g. laptops and desktop computers) then it works, but I can't share the file through Spotify. Also, if I download the song file itself onto my phone and add it to Spotify that way, it works, but it appears to be a different instance of the song. I can only play that version on my phone, and I still can't play the version that works on my computers.

I could just have two versions of the song on all of my playlists, so that one option will always be available, but obviously that's very contrived and unintuitive for a number of reasons. It would be better if I could just figure out what the problem is and go back to how it was working before.

Attached screenshot: The version of the song that's available on all of my computers but not on my phone, and the version that's available on my phone but none of my computers. 

[SoshJam]

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[Kiril]

Hey @SoshJam,

Thanks for your posts here. Apologies for the delayed response, but we just came across this thread.

The way Local files work has been reworked and due to various third-party factors the synchronization of your local files over the network is not supported anymore. You can still have Local files discovered on any of your devices, but the need to be locally present on that device's storage memory. 

To be up to date with how Local files work now for your iOS devices please check out our FAQ page here. 

Hope this clears things up. If you have any questions or need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[SoshJam]

Hey, thanks for the response but this still doesn't work. I dragged the file directly from my Music/Spotify folder (where my local files are kept) directly into the iTunes window, but it's still not available on my iPhone. There is a version of the song available on my iPhone, but if I add that version to the playlist, it's not available on my PC. This is the same problem I was having before.

[Dian]

Hey @SoshJam,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you post descriptive screenshots of your experience so we can better understand what is going on on your end? You can annotate them as well for clarity.

We'll be on the look for your reply,

Cheers!

[SoshJam]

Sorry this took so long, but here's an imgur album with captioned screenshots of the process I go through.

1. Place the song in my Music/Spotify folder, which is currently the only source for Local Files.
2. On my PC, add the song from Local Files into a new playlist
3. Open iTunes, plug in my phone, drag the song file directly from the Music/Spotify folder into the Music window in iTunes, and sync to my iPhone
4. Note that the song shows up in my iPhone's local files
5. Head to the sample playlist and see that the song is still unplayable from that playlist
6. Add the song from my phone's local files to the playlist as well
7. Note that there are now two versions of the song in the playlist, each only accessible from one device.

[SoshJam]

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[Yordan]

Hi @SoshJam!

Does this happen with just this one .mp3 file, or with all of your local files in general? Have you tried with a song that has a different file format? It's worth clearing both apps' cache to see if that does the trick. You can also try updating the track's metadata as well as placing it in a different source folder.

Keep us posted on this. Cheers!

[SoshJam]

Thanks for the response. I tried several different formats but experienced the same issue for each. WAV files also don't support metadata, AIFF files don't support artwork, and FLAC files can't be played on iPhones at all, so MP3 files are the best anyway.

I also cleared the cache on both devices, tried it with another MP3 file, changed the metadata, and tried a different source folder on my PC, and am still experiencing this issue.

Interestingly, if I sync over the one file that does work, which was transferred before the change was made to how local files are handled, suddenly there are two copies of that song on my phone as well. So it's just the new system that doesn't work.

[SoshJam]

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[SoshJam]

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[SoshJam]

my issue has still not been resolved

[Alex]

Hi there @SoshJam,

Thanks for the reply and the info you've submitted.

Can you try to disable the download button on one of your playlists which contains local files. After that Go to Settings --> Local Files and switch off Enable sync from desktop. Restart the Spotify app and switch this setting back on. Afterwards, go to Settings ---> Playback --> and make sure "hide unavailable songs" option is turned on. Next, try to download the playlist again and check if the songs are synched over.

Let me know if that helped.

[SoshJam]

Thanks for responding. Unfortunately I can't find the "Enable sync from desktop" setting on my iPhone. The only toggle under Settings > Local Files is "Show audio files from this device." It's not on my desktop client either. All of my apps are up to date.

[Eni]

Hey @SoshJam,

Thanks for your reply. 

Would you mind following these specific steps to check if they work for you? 

Let us know how it goes.

[SoshJam]

I have already followed those steps several times, that's why I made this post. Please see the Imgur album I attached in a prior reply to this thread, with screenshots and captions that detail my actions.

[Alex]

Hey there @SoshJam,

Thanks for the post.

Can you try using a different network to sync your local files? Something like a mobile hotspot WiFi. You'll need to connect both your phone and computer to it. 

On some networks like school/ work campus networks certain networking ports might be blocked, which in turn doesn't allow for local files to sync. Sometimes this happens even on home routers, so it's always good to try a different network.

Once you connect your devices to the new network, go to your mobile app's setting and switch Show audio files from this device off/on. After that you should see a pop-up asking for permission to access your local network. Accept this permission to enable Local Files transfer between desktop and mobile. After that try going through the steps with the iTunes transfer again.

Let us know if that helped.

[ziwen]

ive got the same problem, is it because im using eduroam as the wifi so it wont work