Add & Edit Lyrics of Songs in iTunes and View Them in the iOS Music App

Dec 8, 2012 - 9 Comments

Did you know you can add or edit the lyrics of any song in your iTunes library? And of course, once you sync that song to your iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll then be able to view the lyrics directly on the iOS device screen. The whole process is quite simple, though you’ll have to fill in lyrics yourself if they aren’t already there, but with no shortage of lyrics sites out there the words the songs are only a quick google search away. The result is that you’ll be able to actually see the words to a song while you’re playing it in the Music app rather than taking a wild guess.

See song lyrics in iOS Music player

Here’s what to do, though you’ll want to repeat the process for each song since obviously each song is going to have different lyrics:

  • Open iTunes, right-click on the song to modify lyrics for and choose “Get Info”
  • Click the “Lyrics” tab and place in new song lyrics, or edit existing ones, click “OK” when finished
  • Add or edit lyrics to songs in iTunes

  • Resync iTunes with iOS if the songs were not edited directly on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
  • Now on the iOS device, locate the song(s) in Music app and tap the album artwork to display the lyrics, scroll down to navigate through lengthy songs

On the iOS side, the lyrics appear at the same screen as the scrubber appears, floating over the album art.

Since the lyrics are placed over album art, you might want to add some album art manually if iTunes couldn’t fill it in on it’s own through the menu option. That is done through the same Song Info panel.

The lyrics feature has been around in iTunes for quite some time and works the same in both Mac OS X and Windows.

Thanks to @methi1999 for the tip! Follow @osxdaily while you’re on the Twitters.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPad, iPhone, iTunes, Tips & Tricks

9 Comments

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  1. mescalinum says:

    the lyrics feature on the iPod nano 7g is quite annoying, and they should improve it.

    the lyrics disappear too soon, and when you show it again, the scroll is reset. :S

  2. Tom Meyers says:

    I believe it was with iOS 6 that Apple made significant changes to the “Music” app. But for some strange reason, they left out the ability to display song lyrics on the iPad. Everything works fine on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

    To display your lyrics on the iPad, you’ll have to download an app like “Lyrics View” (not bad at $.99).

  3. Guy S says:

    Does not work on iPad.

  4. Doc says:

    It won’t work if you have iTunes Match active.

  5. Peter says:

    This definitely works on iOS 6, I just did it with iPhone 5 6.0.1

    Edit Lyrics in iTunes, then RE-SYNC the song with the iWhatever. Then tap the album art to display the song. You have to resync each song from iTunes, it doesn’t do it automatically.

  6. DickFiztwell says:

    I dont think this actually works in iOS6 anymore.

  7. JandG says:

    Wondering if it is supposed to work on iPad2 as well. Still can’t get that to work. A much easier way to get Lyrics is to use the APP “Get Lyrical” which adds the Lyrics automatically but I still get them to show on my iPad2.

    Anyone with a solution?

  8. Tomasz says:

    I can’t get this to work too!!! I am using iCloud service…it does not work!!!

  9. JandG says:

    I can’t get this to work. Tried for ages. Am running latest software. Any help appreciated.

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