Apple Music Storage Question

[Chris_M]

So I've been using Apple Music since it came out I believe. I subscribe to it. When I was using iTunes previously, I had about 25k songs that were imported from CD's that I ripped. All of those songs are on Google Drive. When I switched to Apple Music, I (think) I did the cloud sync thing because all of my music showed up. My question is, since I'm paying for Apple Music, can I delete those old mp3 files? Will they be lost or did Apple Music copy them to my account? Thank you!

 

[Juicy Box]

Regardless of what you end up doing, I suggest that you keep a physical (not cloud) back up of your song library. You never know what might happen in the future, and it would nice to have a copy of all those songs.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Start here and here. Others will likely be along with more insight.

The safe thing would be to always keep a backup copy on an external drive or two, no matter what any cloud vendor promises.

 

[Chris_M]

Thanks!

 

[lostless]

keep your original files. BACKUP IS IMPORTANT. When you add your own files, Apple music matches the file with a copy of their own. Ive had it many times where the matched album, song just goes away from apple music. Its cloud status goes to "no longer available". Its annoying. You find out when you want to play and song and you get the error of song is no longer available. Same can happen too if a newer Remastered version comes out and the older version, that you originally matched too, goes away. I also found a lot of older matches, from when i had itunes match, when switching to apple music, now matched to the wrong version of a song (live vs studio). If you have your backups, You can re add these songs. Either it will rematch to newer copy, or upload the mp3s.
Luckily you can sort songs by cloud status in itunes and just fix the ones that are no longer available. Ive had to fix 100ish or so songs in the past couple months, and 3 more songs became no longer available in the past couple weeks. Its a never ending battle.

 

[Jeffois]

I'm also considering finally making a move to Apple Music...I've subscribed to iTunes Match for many years. Any tips on things to do/things to avoid in making that transition?

 

[lostless]

I'm also considering finally making a move to Apple Music...I've subscribed to iTunes Match for many years. Any tips on things to do/things to avoid in making that transition?

Just be aware that most of your original matches, will now be replaced with DRM apple music files. I see this a bug as any new songs you add are DRM free like itunes match. Some of your old matched songs will be be replaced with the wrong version of the song. (live vs studio). Your old purchased songs back in the day of drm and 128kbs will no longer be upgraded to DRM free 256kbs.
I only noticed these issues after my 12 months of itunes match ended cause I had both itunes match and apple music for a few months running side by side. That about all that I noticed.

 

[Jeffois]

Just be aware that most of your original matches, will now be replaced with DRM apple music files. I see this a bug as any new songs you add are DRM free like itunes match. Some of your old matched songs will be be replaced with the wrong version of the song. (live vs studio). Your old purchased songs back in the day of drm and 128kbs will no longer be upgraded to DRM free 256kbs.
I only noticed these issues after my 12 months of itunes match ended cause I had both itunes match and apple music for a few months running side by side. That about all that I noticed.

Wow. I thought Apple had killed DRM. That's a strike against.

 

[lostless]

Wow. I thought Apple had killed DRM. That's a strike against.

Apple music files are DRMed. If you add add songs via apple music, not from your collection, those songs will have DRM. I don't think that the conversion of your own songs from matched to Apple music is intentional, because not every song converted to apple music and remained "matched" and DRM free. It seemed pretty random. As I said, newly matched songs are DRM free. If i really wanted to, i could erase my whole library, re add all my songs and have it rematch to make them all DRM free again. And I don't think singing up for itunes match again is going to fix the issue. But in the end, DRM on your Iphone/ipad is not a big deal, and is seamless. And I have my whole library on my hard drive DRM free (other than the apple music files) if i really want to use the songs elsewhere.

 

[Jeffois]

Apple music files are DRMed. If you add add songs via apple music, not from your collection, those songs will have DRM. I don't think that the conversion of your own songs from matched to Apple music is intentional, because not every song converted to apple music and remained "matched" and DRM free. It seemed pretty random. As I said, newly matched songs are DRM free. If i really wanted to, i could erase my whole library, re add all my songs and have it rematch to make them all DRM free again. And I don't think singing up for itunes match again is going to fix the issue. But in the end, DRM on your Iphone/ipad is not a big deal, and is seamless. And I have my whole library on my hard drive DRM free (other than the apple music files) if i really want to use the songs elsewhere.

Good points. I would definitely maintain backups of my collection. There's a lot of music that I ripped, and quite a bit more that I purchased from other services, that I want to make certain is preserved.

 

[Juicy Box]

I'm also considering finally making a move to Apple Music...I've subscribed to iTunes Match for many years. Any tips on things to do/things to avoid in making that transition?

I highly suggest keeping at least one back up of all your music, even more so if you plan on going to Apple Music. If something happens to your cloud stored music, there is a good chance that Apple won't do anything for you.

I have used iTunes Match since launch and have overall enjoyed it, although, I hate that Apple removed iTunes Radio from Match Subscribers, but overall, it has been good.

The biggest issue I had was back in 2015 when Apple Music launched. A lot of people were finding out that their libraries were being replaced or disappearing after the AM trial was over.

I had my iTunes music library disappear on me, and I didn't even do the AM free trial. All my songs were greyed out on every Apple device that I had.

I called Apple Support, but they couldn't help and elevated the issues to the Apple Engineers. A few weeks went by and I called to get an update, and Apple Support read the engineer's notes stating that I never had any music upload using iTunes Match, which was of course bull crap.

Luckily, I had a back up to almost every song.

Now that I think about it, I feel like 2015 was the first year where I started to have a crap load of problems with Apple products and services. I talked to Apple Support more in 2015 that I did the prior 20 years of using their products.

I think overall, Apple's quality has gone down hill over the past 5-7 years.

 

[seatton]

I have been thinking about joining Apple Music (on iTunes Match for the past few years), but I know the songs won't play anymore if the service is cancelled. Any recommendations on how to convert Apple Music files to mp3 on a Mac? I see some sites out there, but not sure if they are legit.

 

[26139]

Regardless of what you end up doing, I suggest that you keep a physical (not cloud) back up of your song library. You never know what might happen in the future, and it would nice to have a copy of all those songs.

This.

I store all my stuff like this in a Dropbox folder that I don't sync to my computer.