Get Your Music on Apple Watch with watchOS 4

Some readers have still expressed confusion about how to get music onto their Apple Watch wearable devices. While synchronizing music might be a moot point if you purchase an Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular capability, it’s still an important feature to talk about. Let’s walk through how to get music on Apple Watch with watchOS 4.

In case your wondering how to get music on Apple Watch, here’s a walkthrough on how to synchronize that ear candy to your wearable device (Image Credit: MasterTux)

Why Do I Need to Get Music on Apple Watch?

Maybe you don’t. However, if you regularly work out without your iPhone nearby, this is a good feature to know about. For that matter, any time you might want to listen to music using your Apple Watch is a good use scenario, since it’s easier to just get the music on Apple Watch rather than streaming it from your iPhone.

Just remember, you’ll need to use Bluetooth headphones to listen. Apple is respectful of those around you, and won’t play music through the wearable device’s built-in speaker.

Syncing Music to Apple Watch From Your iPhone

You’ll start the process from your iPhone, specifically from the Watch app. Scroll down until you see Music, and tap on it.

From the Watch app on your iPhone, tap on Music

It’s important to note that Apple Watch only synchronizes music when it’s charging. That might mean leaving your Apple Watch on the charging magnet longer than usual, if you’re uploading a lot of music to your wearable device.

You’ll see some items already selected to synchronize to your Apple Watch. These include “Chill Mix,” “New Music Mix,” and an option called “Heavy Rotation.” Heavy Rotation will sync your most-played playlists and albums to your Apple Watch. You can turn each of these off, if you prefer.

Select which of the predefined playlists you want on your Watch, or choose Add Music

Next, there’s an option to add music. If you tap that, you’ll be taken to a screen where you can begin to select your tracks by artist, album, genre, compilation, or playlist.

Choose what song tracks you want synchronized to your Apple Watch

How Much Music Can I Store on Apple Watch?

With watchOS 3, we were able to set how much of the wearable device’s storage space was allocated to music. That is no longer the case; you are locked into allowing 2GB of space for music.

What does that equate to in real-life terms? In my case, I have about 171 songs stored to my Apple Watch, and it’s currently using 1.6GB of space. I’d estimate most people will be able to fit around 200 songs on their Apple Watch devices before getting the red exclamation mark that the space has run out.

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