No music streaming service is perfect, and most of Apple Music’s biggest weaknesses center around sharing and collaboration. Sure, you can send your playlists to others, but until now, there was no way to create a collaborative playlist on the service. That all changed with the iOS 17.2 beta, which first introduced the feature. Unfortunately, Apple nixed it just before 17.2’s launch—but luckily, the feature lives on in testing 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 need to wait for Apple to drop the update. Either way, once you have it installed, you’ll find the option to create Apple Music playlists that you are your friends can perfect together. Here’s how it works.
How to create and use collaborative playlists in Apple Music
Once you’ve updated to iOS 17.3, open any of the playlists you’ve previously created in the app. You’ll notice an icon above the playlist search bar featuring two people. Tap the icon and you’ll see a popover menu with the title ‘Invite Friends to Join.’ This is where you can start inviting people to join your existing playlists.
By default, Apple allows anyone with your playlist link to add or remove songs, and to reorder them. To limit this, enable the Approve Collaborators option. That 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 an option to edit your name and photo that will appear when working on a playlist. Tap the Edit button next to your name to change this to your liking. Once you’re ready, tap Start Collaboration.
This will open the share sheet allowing you to send an invite link to your friends or family. From there, they’ll be able to tap the link and join your playlist. To manage your playlist in the future (or invite more people), you can hit the people icon up top once again. Here you’ll see the name of your playlist and two options to share an invite—via an invite link (valid for seven days from the time you send it) 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 ability to stop collaboration at any point, and to add or remove collaborators. Apple Music allows you to disable manually approving collaborators as well, if you’re sure only people you know and trust will obtain the link (and thus the ability to join your collaborative playlist).
Once all of this is done, you’ll notice a few changes to your playlist. A profile picture will appear next to all the songs to help identify who added which one. 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).
