How to Use Apple Music Lyrics in iOS 10

One of the newest features in iOS 10's redesigned Apple Music app is the ability to view lyrics for your favorite songs. While the ability to quickly access song lyrics to learn the lines is helpful, the new feature may get lost in the midst of Apple Music's new look. We've put together a how-to guide to show you how to view lyrics for your songs.

First, you'll need to start playing a song. Once a song is playing, click on the song's banner, just above the Apple Music menu bar at the bottom, to open the song's individual card. From here, there are two methods to view lyrics.

Method One:

Tap the "three dots" button in the bottom right corner. This brings up a menu overlay displaying options for the song, like adding it to a playlist or creating a station.

Tap the "Lyrics" button below the "Share Song" option. Songs with available lyrics will have this option displayed, while songs without lyrics available will not.

The lyrics will pop up in a separate translucent window that slides over the song window.

Method Two:

Scroll down while in the song card.

The lyrics toggle will be displayed directly beneath the song, right above the "Up Next" feature.

Tap on "Show" to reveal the lyrics to your song.

Currently, lyrics are not available on all songs and albums, but Apple has been rapidly expanding the number of tracks with lyrics support throughout the beta testing period and coverage has become fairly broad in time for the public release.

Tag: Apple Music

Top Rated Comments

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MacFather

32 months ago

good old days...

Rating: 9 Votes

NSNotFound

32 months ago

This is literally the worst version of the Music app ever made by Apple. Bad usability and completely incoherent design choice.

Rating: 8 Votes

Tapdawg

32 months ago

I've spent years putting lyrics manually onto each of my songs I have purchased. This update has removed the ability for me to see my lyrics. Why would Apple remove a feature like this?

Cash Grab for Apple Music?

Rating: 4 Votes

macfacts

32 months ago

Maybe Apple should improve the user interface for their music and messaging apps so tutorials aren't needed.

Rating: 4 Votes

kwikdeth

32 months ago

good old days...

Speaking of good old days, anybody remember the two step process to show lyrics in iOS6?

1. Play song
2. Tap artwork in main player window

Rating: 3 Votes

Am3r1ca16

32 months ago

I had lyric in my music because I did it manually via iTunes.now none of the lyric show up for my music.
I don't use apple music

Rating: 3 Votes

thisisnotmyname

32 months ago

To those asking about songs purchased vs Apple Music, lyrics are intellectual property that can be licensed separately from the song itself thus having a license to the song does not necessarily entitle you to see the lyrics too. Apple licensed the lyrics specifically in conjunction with Apple Music thus the access for subscribers. It's not an Apple conspiracy to force anyone onto AM, you can thank the music industry eeking out a few more dollars on format change grounds.

Rating: 3 Votes

Waxhead138

32 months ago

I subscribe to iTunes Match (which technically doesn't seem to exist anymore) and none of my albums -- not the ones where I added lyrics myself nor any that I bought from Apple (including Hamilton, which is shown above with lyrics) -- shows an option to view lyrics. Apple should have put a big asterisk next to their announcement of the feature.

It's starting to seem more and more these days that the attitude prevalent is "Our way or get over it." It's one thing to add functionality....but not at the cost of interfering with my custom work. Especially when I don't subscribe to Apple Music. It's looking as though they make practically no distinction between the offered service and the manually built libraries of users. My collection came from, in every case, my own hard copy albums. They shouldn't monkey with that.

I never really wanted to migrate from ITunes but there a million other options out there. In many cases seemingly much more friendly. Plex is looking more tempting with each ITunes revision.

Edit: The most annoying part: Completely fixable problems. I'm not looking for a pizza to be delivered every time I add a song to the library....I'm asking to leave certain things alone or give users the option to use/not use. They can completely remedy these problems...truth is IMO they just don't give a damn.

Rating: 3 Votes

kwikdeth

32 months ago

Not to defend the UI/UX of the Music app in general I agree that it gets confusing. But I am curious what the better solution for this specific feature is? This is a non-critical feature and it's only hidden behind 1-2 taps. What's the issue? Where would you put this feature?

It's easy to quickly judge these things, but as a software developer who often helps with UI/UX design, I am failing see a better place for this.

In iOS 6 all you had to do was tap the artwork in the main player window. Simple, easy, direct.

Rating: 3 Votes

autrefois

32 months ago

To reuse an expression Tim Cook likes to use, this is bullcrap. For over a decade it's been possible to view manually entered lyrics into iTunes, and then in the iPhone. It was and still is possible to do this in iOS 9. If Apple were concerned about whether or not you have the rights to display lyrics, they would have "fixed" this ages ago.

It's very simple: they took away a feature that's been around for years for free and made it a paid-only feature.

EDIT: maybe not so simple. Based on posts below some people are able to see their manually entered lyrics still or to get it working again if it's not. I think I'm going to wait and see how it plays out.

Rating: 2 Votes

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