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How to create and share playlists in Apple Music

Create the perfect playlist using Apple Music and share it with the world, or just a few friends. Your choice, really.

Jason Cipriani Contributing Writer, ZDNet
Jason Cipriani is based out of beautiful Colorado and has been covering mobile technology news and reviewing the latest gadgets for the last six years. His work can also be found on sister site CNET in the How To section, as well as across several more online publications.
Jason Cipriani
2 min read

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

Apple Music offers a mishmash of features and capabilities. Some are easy to find, such as Beats 1 Radio. While others, such as creating and sharing a playlist are a bit hidden.

Creating a playlist is actually a simple process once you grasp the gist of how it all works. So how does it work? I'm glad you asked.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

  • After updating your iOS device to iOS 8.4, launch the new Music app. Along the bottom you'll find some new buttons, one of which is My Music; tap on it.
  • Tap on the Playlist button found at the top of the screen.
  • Wading through the recently added songs and albums, along with other playlists you currently have, is a very small New button. Tapping on it does exactly what you think it'd do.
  • Give your playlist a name, add some songs, and a photo if you'd like. When you select a category to search, you're given the option to search content available in Apple Music or music you own. If you want, you can skip adding a photo and let Music create a playlist icon for you based on the songs in the playlist.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

  • Once you've added a song to the playlist, a Shared Playlist button will appear. This option defaults to On, meaning you can send a link for others to add the playlist to their Apple Music account. Slide it to the Off position if you'd rather keep it private.

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After you're done curating the playlist, you can then save it and share your work by tapping on the familiar share button. Any changes you make in the future will result in the playlist updating across all devices it's saved to. Meaning, if a friend saves your playlist, your changes will sync to his or her device.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear your friends can currently add songs to one of your playlists. Another important item to note: if you create a playlist that includes a song that's not available in Apple Music (such as the Beatles), the song will be included in the share playlist but it will be greyed out for those who don't also own the song. And for whatever reason, tapping on the song fails to direct the user to the iTunes store.