Macdio Favorites, Lists and iCloud Sync Across Your Devices

In Macdio a star makes a station a favorite, the stations you added yourself sit in My Stations, and lists group any stations you like. You choose the order of all of them, and iCloud carries favorites, your own stations, lists and that order to your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Apple Watch gets the same library from your iPhone.

On iPhone or iPad:

1. Long-press a station and choose “Add to Favorites”.
2. In Library, tap “+”, choose “New List”, type a name and tap “Create”.
3. Long-press a station and choose “Add to List” to put it in that list.
4. Open Macdio on your Mac, iPad or Apple TV. iCloud brings the favorite and the list.

Favorites are the stations you starred, from the directory or your own. My Stations holds the stations you added by stream URL (add a custom station), and a new one is not a favorite until you star it. My Lists are your own groups. A station can sit in several lists, and taking it out of one leaves it in Favorites and your other lists.

Device	Add	Remove
iPhone and iPad	Long-press, “Add to Favorites”, or swipe and tap “Favorite”	Long-press, “Remove from Favorites”
Mac	Right-click, “★ Favorite”	Right-click, “Unfavorite”
Apple TV	“Add to Favorites” in Browse, “Favorite” in Now Playing	“Remove from Favorites”

Removing a favorite asks first. It leaves Favorites on every device, and the station and your lists stay.

On iPhone and iPad, tap “+” in Library, choose “New List”, type a “List name” and tap “Create”. Long-press a station and choose “Add to List” to file it (that sheet can create a list too). Long-press a list card for “Customize” (name, colour, icon or emoji) or “Delete”.

On the Mac, click “+” in Library and choose “New List…”. Right-click a station for “Add to List”, “Move to” or “Remove from” the list it is in. Right-click a list header for “Rename…”, “Customize…” and “Delete List”.

On Apple TV, “Add to List” in Browse, Library and Now Playing puts a station into one of your lists. Lists you make on iPhone, iPad or Mac show up on the TV through iCloud.

Deleting a list asks first and never deletes its stations.

Library sections: the “Sections” button (up and down arrows) in the Library toolbar on iPhone, iPad and Mac opens a sheet. Drag sections into order, hide one with the eye, and pick how many rows each shows: 5, 10, 20, 50 or All. The layout follows you to every device. On Apple TV, “Reorder” in Library sets the order of Favorites, My Stations and My Lists.

Favorites and My Stations: on iPhone and iPad, the section header has “A-Z” and a reorder button that opens “Reorder Favorites” or “Reorder My Stations”. The Mac and Apple TV show the order you set there. The browser editor also sets the My Stations order when you save.

Lists and the stations inside them: on iPhone and iPad, use “A-Z” or the reorder button on the My Lists header, or inside a list. On the Mac, drag list headers and rows, or right-click a list header for “Move Up”, “Move Down”, “Reorder Lists…”, “Sort Lists A-Z” or “Sort Stations A-Z”.

“Play my favorites on Macdio” with Siri follows your own favorites order.

Your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV share one iCloud library for Macdio when they use the same iCloud account. These travel between them:

• favorites, your own stations, names you gave directory stations, and logo pictures you chose;
• lists and list colours, your order for favorites, My Stations, lists and the stations in each list, and the Library section layout;
• saved songs, listening stats and recently played stations;
• podcast shows, transcripts and highlights (see podcasts in Macdio and transcripts and highlights);
• a few settings, such as Appearance, Safety Buffer, Adaptive Buffering and Live Pause, plus the Mac Dock and menu bar choices.

These stay on the device:

• recordings (see recording in Macdio) and downloaded podcast episodes;
• the Recently Heard song list on iPhone, iPad and Mac;
• most other settings, such as Auto-Play on Launch, Auto Shazam, the app and Dock icon, Swipe Actions, podcast playback, recording and the Apple TV display counts.

The watch does not use iCloud for Macdio. It gets your favorites, My Stations, recent stations, lists, saved songs and podcast shows from Macdio on your iPhone. The iPhone row in the watch’s Settings shows when the last sync arrived, and tapping it asks again. More in radio on Apple Watch.

Run “Test iCloud Sync”:

• iPhone and iPad: Settings, “Sync”.
• Mac: Settings, General, “iCloud & Data”.
• Apple TV: Settings, “Sync & Data”.

It checks “Settings (KVS)”, “CloudKit Account” and “CloudKit Data”, then either reports “All sync layers healthy” or names the problem, for example “No iCloud account on this device” or “iCloud storage full”.

To check for changes now, pull down on the Library on iPhone, or press ⌘R in the Mac Library.

In Library, click “+” and choose “Export Stations…”. Macdio saves macdio_stations.json with your favorites, your own stations and your lists, and tells you how many of each it wrote. “Import Stations…” reads that file back. It adds missing custom stations, marks favorites and rebuilds your lists.

The file does not include logo pictures, logo choices, your manual order or list colours. On iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, your own stations go in and out through the browser editor as JSON, CSV or M3U, which is a different format from the Mac file. OPML import and export in Macdio is for podcasts only.

• CarPlay and the Mac menu bar list favorites by name, not in your order, and CarPlay lists are sorted by name too.
• Favorites and My Stations can only be reordered on iPhone and iPad.
• Reset All Data in Settings deletes your favorites, saved songs, lists and listening history on every device that shares your iCloud library, and the recordings on the device where you run it. It asks first, and it cannot be undone.

Yes. Favorites, your own stations, lists and their order sync through iCloud between Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

On iPhone or iPad, tap the reorder button in the Favorites header and drag. The Mac and Apple TV show the same order.

No. Only the list goes, on every device. Its stations stay in your library.

No. Recordings and downloaded podcast episodes stay on the device where you made or downloaded them.

No. The watch gets your favorites, My Stations, lists, saved songs and podcast shows from Macdio on your iPhone.

Run Test iCloud Sync in Settings. It sits under Sync on iPhone and iPad, under General, then iCloud & Data on the Mac, and under Sync & Data on Apple TV.

Get Macdio on the App Store and star a few stations on one device. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch, with no subscription.