Guide to Sync iTunes Music to iPad

iTunes, as an assistive software designed by Apple, serves for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to manage media files with more extended functionality. Actually, iTunes can either work as a local video player/music player or a music transfer tool for iPhone or iPad. But what if I want to play music from iTunes using my iPad at any time and anywhere, how do I transfer music from iTunes to iPad? Well, it is quite easy to do that in fact. Let's see how to make it with different methods.

Part 1. What You Should Prepare before Transferring iTunes Music to iPad
Part 2. How to Sync Music from iTunes to iPad Manually via Drag and Drop
Part 3. How to Export Music from iTunes to iPad Automatically via iTunes

1. What You Should Prepare before Transferring iTunes Music to iPad

This article will show you 2 different and free ways to export music from iTunes to iPad using iTunes. It is necessary to prepare the following tools to sync songs from iTunes to iPad, including:

1. Your iPad, such as iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad mini, New iPad, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad 1 and etc. with iOS 16/15/14/13/12/11, iOS 10, iOS 9, iOS 8, iOS 7 and etc.

2. A computer, either Windows PC or Mac. It supports Windows 11/10/8/7 and Mac OS X 10.7 or later.

3. Songs stored on iTunes. Due to copyright issue, you can only transfer purchased music from iTunes to iOS device via iTunes. So you need to make sure the songs you want to transfer to iPad are bought from iTunes Store.

4. iTunes app installed on computer. Please make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest iTunes version on your computer, or some iTunes errors or iPhone errors may easily happen to your device, such as iTunes error 1/6/27/9006 and etc.

To update iTunes to the latest version, you can either download iTunes directly from Apple official website, or go to Help > Check for Update on iTunes to get a latest version.

install the latest itunes on pc

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2. How to Sync Music from iTunes to iPad Manually via Drag and Drop

It is a free way to selectively transfer songs from iTunes to iPad without replacing or deleting the existing music library on your iPad. Using the way of drag and drop on iTunes, you can manually add specific songs from computer to your device after choosing the desired songs you want to import to your iPad while previewing. Let's see how to do it.

Note: This user guide will take Windows PC for example, but the steps are the same as Mac.

Step 1. Get a USB cable to connect your iPad to computer. Make sure your USB cord is not damaged and suitable for your device.

Step 2. Launch iTunes on your computer and iTunes is supposed to detect your device soon. Please be noted again that iTunes should be the latest version, otherwise iTunes may fail to detect your device or lead to certain iTunes errors.

Step 3. To make sure you are able to manually manage your media files on iTunes, please go to "Summary" and check the box before "Manually manage music and videos" under Options section on the right panel.

manually manage music and videos in itunes

Step 4. Once iTunes detects your iPad, please click the drop-down menu besides the device icon and select "Music" option. After that, click "Songs" tab from iTunes Library on the left panel to choose the wanted songs from the music list on the right panel.

how to transfer music from itunes to ipad - select music option in itunes

Step 5. After deciding to transfer a specific song, please left-click the song to choose and drag it to "Device" section and drop it on "Music" folder.

how to transfer music from itunes to ipad - drag and drop music from itunes to ipad

Thus, you have transferred the selected song to your iPad successfully. You can refer to the above steps to transfer more songs you like from iTunes to iPad as easy as possible now.

Besides, for iPad and iPod users, you can add music from multiple iTunes Libraries, but videos from only one iTunes Library. And for iPhone users, you can add music or videos only from an iTunes Library.

Guide to Add iTunes U to iPad

3. How to Export Music from iTunes to iPad Automatically via iTunes

If you can't manually add songs from iTunes to device, please check again if you have enabled the "Manually manage music and videos" option on your iTunes. If yes, try to turn off it and then turn on it again to activate it.

Or you can also use iTunes to automatically sync music from iTunes to iPad. But please be noted that this will delete all iTunes contents on your device and replace your iTunes files with another library. This method is more suitable for users who want to renew the files on your iPad, or users who just have reset their iPad to factory settings and etc.

Anyway, to automatically sync iTunes music to iPad, please refer to the following instructions.

Step 1. Please make your iPad connected to computer with a USB cord and launch the latest iTunes on your computer.

Step 2. As soon as iTunes detects your iPad, you might click the device icon on the left top of iTunes window.

Step 3. Then please click "Music" tab under Settings section on the left side. Now please turn to the right side to check the box before "Sync Music" option.

Step 4. Under Sync Music option, you might see different options here. Just check the boxes that contains the songs you want to transfer to iPad, such as "Entire music library", "Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres", "Include music videos" and etc.

Step 5. After selecting, please click "Apply" option on the bottom and then iTunes will automatically sync songs to your iPad now.

sync itunes music to
ipad