iOS 26: How to Use the New Music Pins Feature

[MacRumors]

If you've ever found yourself scrolling endlessly through your iPhone's music library to find that one album you play every morning or the workout playlist that gets you pumped, then you should find iOS 26's new Music pins feature a welcome addition to the app.

Basically, Apple Music lets you pin your most frequently accessed songs, playlists, albums, and artists directly to the top of your Library tab, making them readily accessible with a single tap.

Pinning keeps your musical essentials within easy reach, and it couldn't be easier to use. In the Music app, simply navigate to the song, album, artist, or playlist that you want to pin, then long press on the item and choose the Pin option from the popup menu.

To unpin an item from the top of your Library tab, it's pretty much the same action – long press it and choose the Unpin option from the popup menu.

Download Pinned Items?

The first time you use Music pins, iOS 26 will ask if you want to download pinned items automatically for offline listening. You can adjust this setting anytime by navigating to Settings ➝ Apps ➝ Music and toggling Download Pins.

Music pins aren't the only new Music addition in iOS 26. The app now has an AutoMix feature to create seamless DJ-style transitions between songs, plus there's also lyrics translation and lyrics pronunciation, making it easier to appreciate music from all over the world. Note that iOS 26 is currently in beta and will be released in the fall.

Article Link: iOS 26: How to Use the New Music Pins Feature

 

[ignatius345]

Nice. I hope it appears in CarPlay as well. I can generally find a moment to root through my phone generally for stuff to listen to, but in the car I need very quick access to key playlists/etc.

 

[citysnaps]

An excellent feature!

 

[svish]

Will be useful for me. Will definitely use this later during the year once my devices are updated.

 

[BGrifter]

Neat.

Now let me add songs to Music from the Files app.

 

[RemedyRabbit]

Folders is the biggest thing for me, I have loads of playlists and it’s become far easier to manage my collection.

I still have a long list of things that annoy me about the Music app, but folders alone is the biggest improvement in years.

That’s genuinely quite a mad thing to say when you think about it, given that the use of folders for file organisation in computing isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept. Why haven’t they been available all along?

 

[antiprotest]

Finally something sensible and practical.

 

[jamie j.]

Sadly this is useless to me because it requires you to turn on library sync. The last time I did this, it deleted all of the high quality recordings I had out of my iTunes. Had to turn it off and then do a restore from a backup. I refuse to turn on library sync. Also, why do I have to? I just want the pinned playlists on my iPhone. It doesn't need to sync with anything else.

If anyone has a workaround for this, I'd love to hear it.

 

[kyemaloy]

The post should mention that you can control what happens when you tap a pinned item as well in the app and in the widget. You long press the icon in the Pinned section and select Tap Action where you can pick to play, shuffle or go to the playlist.

 

[GradientWinds]

I absolutely love this feature, but I did put in a suggestion to Apple in the Feedback app. I think having the pinned area be a 3x2 grid, then having a list of buttons for genre, albums, etc, and then having your Recently Added in a 2x2 grid list looks... terrible.

I suggested being able to "collapse" the Recently Added section along with having a different design identity for the pinned area at the top.

What if we had a fun, overflow-like section at the top? Maybe something similar to how the photos stack in the messages app when you send a bunch of them?

While I love the feature, I think it feels just slapped on and doesn't feel elegant or make sense with the rest of the app. I wish the design of it was approached differently, and was more Apple-like.

 

[Jimmy Bubbles]

This article is confusing because I first thought maybe they rolled this out with 18.6 yesterday. Oh well!

 

[RUQRU]

I would be nice if it allowed Radio Stations to be pinned also.

 

[jonnyb098]

Amazing this took 10 years. Still waiting on a sleep timer like the podcast app has had forever.....

 

[jonnyb098]

I would be nice if it allowed Radio Stations to be pinned also.

Don't hold your breath, they even took away the recently played stations from the radio tab. I hate Apple sometimes....but that is becoming more frequent lately.

 

[bradriley]

I would be nice if it allowed Radio Stations to be pinned also.

It’s baffling you can’t even pin the Apple’s own Apple Music stations. Do Apple employees even use their own platforms???

 

[darngooddesign]

Amazing this took 10 years. Still waiting on a sleep timer like the podcast app has had forever.....

Would be good in the music app, but you can currently do that with the Clock app's Timer section.

You can also tell Siri to "Go to sleep in ## minutes", and it will stop playing then.

 

[vintris]

Why can I only pin to Library tab and not to the top of the Home menu? When I start the Music app, it always defaults to the Home tab. I would like to pin it there to avoid the additional step of clicking Library first. Is there a way to do that?

 

[hagar]

Seems very useful.
All I want is to ask Siri to play my locally downloaded music but for some reason she can’t do that. And she always plays my entire library.

Maybe that will be a useful workaround.

 

[ChittagongBoy]

Nice, how about a Manual EQ too ?

 

[darngooddesign]

Seems very useful.
All I want is to ask Siri to play my locally downloaded music but for some reason she can’t do that. And she always plays my entire library.

Maybe that will be a useful workaround.

Create a Smart Playlist with Location set to 'On this Device'; that playlist should sync to your phone. Then tell Siri to play Playlist Name.

 

[videosoul]

That's a nice touch.

There's another thing I'd love to (perhaps quite an unusual request). I'd like to be able to add music to playlists without also adding it to my library. Idea being, so I can listen to playlists of something I'm in the mood for... but if I want to just leave my main library suffering, I might not want those particular songs to appear.

 

[PhatRS]

If you sync your music to your phone, then you can sort by recently played, most played, and many more options in Harken Offline Music Player.

 

[patent10021]

Great music, kinda lame music app. You can't even scroll through more than 30 'Recently Added' rows of two columns. To me, 'recently' means at least a month. I might add upwards of 20 singles/albums on any given day so Apple Music is gimped for any serious music lover.

If you want a true music app I recommend Marvis. I paid for it after watching a YouTube demo. Zero affiliation. Unfortunately since it's a 3rd party app and doesn't have access to Apple's native frameworks, some features take you out of the app and into Apple Music. I think that's only happened to me a couple of times though; can't recall what feature it was since it was so long ago.

I still use Apple Music though. Sometimes Marvis feels like it has too many features. If Apple PMs would just learn how to build a proper music app I wouldn't need to switch back and forth.

 

[phuklok1]

you know what would actually be useful, a real graphic equalizer (not presets like in the first generation of iPod) and have it remember your settings for each of your Bluetooth devices so that in 2025 you still don’t have to manually adjust everything each time like it was the 1990s

 

[LasNoches]

Does anyone know how to pin an artist ? I haven’t been able to do that yet.