You Can Create Collaborative Apple Music Playlists (Again)
No music streaming service is perfect , and most of Apple Music’s biggest shortcomings revolve around sharing and collaboration. Of course, you can send your playlists to others, but until now the service didn’t have the ability to create a collaborative playlist . That all changed with the release of iOS 17.2 beta , which introduced this feature for the first time. Unfortunately, Apple abandoned it shortly before the launch of version 17.2, but fortunately, this feature continues to be tested as part of the iOS 17.3 beta .
If you want to try creating a shared playlist today, you can install the iOS 17.3 developer beta . Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for Apple to release the update. In any case, once you install it, you will find the ability to create Apple Music playlists that you and your friends can perfect together. Here’s how it works.
How to create and use collaborative playlists in Apple Music
After updating to iOS 17.3, open any of the playlists previously created in the application. Above the playlist search bar you will see an icon with a picture of two people. Tap the icon and you’ll see a pop-up menu titled “Invite Friends to Join.” Here you can start inviting people to join your existing playlists.
By default, Apple allows anyone with a link to your playlist to add or remove songs, or change their order. To limit this, turn on the Approve Collaborators option. This way, you can check who wants to join your collaborative playlists and approve the people you’d actually like to share music with. You also have the ability to edit your name and photo, which will be displayed when working with the playlist. Click the “Edit” button next to your name to change it to your liking. When you’re ready, click Start Collaborating .
This will open a sharing page where you can send an invitation link to your friends or family. From there, they can click the link and join your playlist. To manage your playlist in the future (or invite more people), you can tap the people icon at the top again. Here you’ll see the name of your playlist and two options to share the invite – via an invite link (valid for seven days from the time it’s sent), as well as a QR code that others can scan to quickly join your playlist as a collaborator.
From the same menu, you also have the option to stop collaboration at any time and add or remove collaborators. Apple Music also lets you turn off collaborator approvals manually if you’re confident that only people you know and trust will receive the link (and therefore the ability to join your collaborative playlist).
Once all this is done, you will notice some changes in your playlist. A profile picture will appear next to all songs so you can identify who added which song. And at the end of the playlist, you’ll see a list of all the collaborators, so you’ll know exactly who to thank for their contributions (assuming they have good taste, of course).