The update for iOS 13, iPadOS 13, tvOS 13, and macOS 10.15.4 brings us the time-synced lyrics feature in Apple Music. Now you can see synchronized lyrics of your favorite songs in real-time and sing karaoke at home with iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. Especially when you're stuck at home during the pandemic, having an in-home karaoke party sounds like a fun thing to do, right?
In this article, we'll show you how to see real-time lyrics in Apple Music on your phone, computer, or TV. And you'll also discover extra tips including how to add lyrics to Apple Music (when lyrics aren't available for a song) and how to search for a song through lyrics.
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1. Time-synced Lyrics: What You Need to Know
The biggest difference between plaintext lyrics and time-synced lyrics is that time-synced lyrics will scroll as the music plays which allows you to follow along with the lyrics of your favorite songs in real-time. What's more, the synced lyrics are displayed in bigger text and are highlighted in white, making it a lot easier for you to know when to sing along, just like singing in karaoke style.
I really like the new lyrics feature because it allows you to scroll up and down through the lyrics screen and tap on the word in the lyrics to jump to a specific position of that song. You can easily skip the song to your favorite verse. This feature helps a lot when you are not familiar with a song and want to practice singing one line at a time repeatedly.
Now, before you experience the animated lyrics on your devices, here are the requirements that you should be aware of:
1.1 Apple Music Subscription
It requires a subscription to Apple Music to see live lyrics in the Apple Music app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or other devices. But not all songs will have lyrics available, if a song doesn't show any lyrics, then the lyrics aren't available for that song. In this case, you can manually add lyrics to Apple Music, we'll show you how to do it in Part 3 of this guide. Keep reading.
1.2 Internet Connection Required
It requires an internet connection to show animated or full static lyrics.
1.3 Latest OS of Your Devices
iPhone/iPad/iPod touch devices running iOS 13.0 or later
iPad running iPadOS 13.0 or later
Apple TV with tvOS 13.0 or later
Macs with macOS Catalina 1015.4 or newer
Android phone or tablet with Android 5.0 Lollipop or later
1.4 Real-time Lyrics Are Unsupported on
iTunes for Windows PC
Music app on Apple Watch
1.5 Country Limitation
Apple Music lyrics feature is not available for all songs and is not available in all countries or regions, either. Current Apple Music lyrics are available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, New Zealand, and France. (Sources from MacRumors)
2. How to View Time-Synced Lyrics in Apple Music
2.1 See Time-synced lyrics on iPhone and iPad
1. Open the Music app on your iPhone (iOS 13+) or iPad (iPad OS 13+).
2. Play an Apple Music song and tap on the "Now Playing" bar at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap on the Lyric icon (quotes button) in the lower-left corner, the real-time lyrics will show in the below screen.
The lyrics will move as the songs keeps playing. You can tap any line in the lyrics screen to skip to s specific section of that song and swipe up to hide the playback bar.
To see full lyrics of that song, click at the three dots button at the upper right corner and tap on "View Full Lyrics". Now you should see the non-animated lyrics on the screen.
2.2 See Time-synced lyrics on Mac
1. Open the Music app on your Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15.4+.
2. Start playing a track, and click the lyric icon at the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Now you should see the time-synced lyrics in the right column.
Tips:
#1 Open time-synced lyrics in full screen:
You can enter full-screen mode with the keyboard shortcut command + shift + F.
#2 View time-synced lyrics in mini player:
Just click the small album cover displayed at the playback bar at the top center of the screen. You can open the mini-player in full screen by clicking the green circle in the top-left corner of the window.
#3 See full lyrics in Apple Music on Mac:
Click the (…) option to the right of the song and select Get Info > click at the Lyrics tab to view full lyrics. If your Mac is running an older macOS version (earlier than macOS Catalina 10.15.4), you can still enjoy full (static) lyrics in the Music app.
2.3 See Lyrics in iTunes on Windows PC
If you are using Windows PC, you can only view static lyrics on iTunes. Here are the steps required to view the full lyrics of a song in iTunes:
1. Open iTunes on your Windows PC, then choose an Apple Music track and start playing it.
2. Click the 3-line menu icon at the top of the control bar.
3. Click on the Lyrics tab to bring up the full lyrics of that song.
4. If you don't see lyrics for a specific song, it's probably because the song doesn't have embedded lyrics.
2.4 See Time-synced lyrics on Apple TV
1. Open the Music app on your Apple TV HD, Apple TV or newer with tvOS 13.0 + and play a song you like.
2. Now you should see the animated lyrics scrolling automatically on the TV screen.
3. To jump to a specific part of a song, all you need to do is swipe up or down on the Touch surface and click at the desired line with the Apple TV Remote.
4. It's easy to turn off the time-synced lyrics on your Apple TV, just press the Menu button on your remote and click the Lyrics icon at the upper-right corner of the screen.
You can do the following to view full lyrics on Apple TV:
1. Click the (…) menu at the top of the Now playing screen.
2. Scroll down and select View Full Lyrics, then the complete lyrics will show up on the TV screen.
3. Add Lyrics to Apple Music on Windows PC/Mac
If you've made it this far, you should know that the lyrics feature is not available to every song, even if you've subscribed to Apple Music. For the songs which don't support lyrics by default, you can manually add lyrics from other sources to these songs. The follows will guide you through the steps required to add custom lyrics to Apple Music tracks or iTunes tracks on Mac or Windows PC.
1. Launch the Music app on Mac or iTunes app on Windows PC.
2. Choose a track and right-click at the selected track, tap on Get Info.
3. Tap on the Lyrics tab and choose Custom Lyrics.
4. Enter the lyrics and click "OK" to save the lyrics.
Note: Please keep in mind that you need to subscribe to Apple Music or iTunes Match to sync custom lyrics to your devices.
4. Find Songs via Lyrics in Apple Music
Is it possible to search for a song even if you don't remember the artist, album, or the actual name of that song? The answer is yes. The iOS 12 update comes with a new feature in the Apple Music app – finding songs by lyrics with or without an Apple Music subscription. Here’re the steps required to search song lyrics in Apple Music:
1. Open the Music app on iPhone or iPad.
2. Type in the song lyrics in the search bar and tap Search.
3. All the matching songs will show up in the search result.
4. If you are an Apple Music subscriber, you can tap on the songs to preview them to see if it is the actual song
that you're looking for. If you haven't subscribed to Apple Music, you won’t be able to play the songs in the
search results and you'll be prompted to subscribe.
That's it. Hope this guide will be helpful to you. If you have any questions about Apple Music lyrics, feel free to let me know in the comments. Cheer!
