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rayjay86

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 15, 2011
279
17
Hi

I just want to confirm something before I make the switch back to AM from Spotify. I originally tried the trial when it first came out but wasn't happy. My music kept getting deleted from my phone; when I opened my playlist at the gym, boom, no music...It happened a few times despite saving locally so I bailed and went back to Spotify. It's been a while now and I've got an apple watch as well so decided to give AM a try again.

I've got about 30gb of locally stored music on my computer. I remember doing the whole matching process last time and my understanding of this:

- Apple will match the music on my computer with high quality copies it has in its database
- When I listen to AM, the high quality songs will be played

Can I delete the locally stored files off my computer? It'll save a HUGE amount of space on my 250gb macbook air?

Will this mean I then lose whatever is in the cloud because it doesn't see the files on my computer anymore? I have a mix of CD rips as well as not-so legally downloaded music.
 

Julien

macrumors G4
Jun 30, 2007
11,859
5,445
Atlanta
....Can I delete the locally stored files off my computer? It'll save a HUGE amount of space on my 250gb macbook air?......
Sure just beside you normal backup (Time Machine????) make an extra backup of you music files.
 

M. Gustave

macrumors 68000
Jun 6, 2015
1,856
1,712
Grand Budapest Hotel
The 'quality' (bitrate) of Apple Music depends on the settings you pick, and how you listen: playback on wifi is always 256kbps; playback on cellular is 96kbps (allegedly) with "High Quality on Cellular" off, 256kbps with it on.

After initial upload/matching, you don't need your MacBook for anything Apple Music related again. Regardless, you should move your entire iTunes library to external storage, and make another backup copy.

And I've never had downloaded music deleted from my iPhone by AM. Are you leaving Airplane Mode on for long periods?
 

rayjay86

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 15, 2011
279
17
The 'quality' (bitrate) of Apple Music depends on the settings you pick, and how you listen: playback on wifi is always 256kbps; playback on cellular is 96kbps (allegedly) with "High Quality on Cellular" off, 256kbps with it on.

After initial upload/matching, you don't need your MacBook for anything Apple Music related again. Regardless, you should move your entire iTunes library to external storage, and make another backup copy.

And I've never had downloaded music deleted from my iPhone by AM. Are you leaving Airplane Mode on for long periods?

No none of these incidents were with airplane mode on. It would work one day at the gym and the next it would be gone. Happened once or twice in the car as well, then I called it quits.
 

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,257
10,215
San Jose, CA
Can I delete the locally stored files off my computer? It'll save a HUGE amount of space on my 250gb macbook air?

Will this mean I then lose whatever is in the cloud because it doesn't see the files on my computer anymore? I have a mix of CD rips as well as not-so legally downloaded music.
You can delete the local files and they will still be in your cloud music library, but don't do this without first making a backup! Apple's matching algorithm isn't perfect and has been known to mismatch occasionally, in which case you'd lose access to the original song if you don't have a backup. iCloud music library was not designed as a backup solution.
 

riverfreak

macrumors 68000
Jan 10, 2005
1,828
2,292
Thonglor, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon
You can delete the local files and they will still be in your cloud music library, but don't do this without first making a backup! Apple's matching algorithm isn't perfect and has been known to mismatch occasionally, in which case you'd lose access to the original song if you don't have a backup. iCloud music library was not designed as a backup solution.

To say Apple Music's matching algorithm isn't perfect is a tremendous understatement. It will do things like match some (but not all) songs from an album, and place then under what it considers to be the default sort order.

For example, it might match some songs of a "Eno, Brian" album. The matched songs typically would be ordered as "Brian Eno" (note below on this). In the not so distant past, AM would try to rectify this and, I believe, is the source of lost music. Now, it just retains the original and the matched. The net result is duplication of files -- or file references -- in your library. Moreover, it means you will have some albums that are incomplete, and artists located in multiple locations. It's really annoying if you are old school and like to actually browse your music.

The good thing? You can actually edit the meta info for both your music and things you've added from AM. So they weren't completely clueless when they were building the thing.
 
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