Can I rematch my physica tracks in Apple Music

[Foxer]

Ever since iTunes let you start matching songs back whenever, there have been some stubborn tracks that have refused to be matched even though they are clearly in iTunes. I lived with it, since we were talking about dozens of songs in a library of 1000's of tracks.

Lately, though, this is happening much more often. I'm averaging about 50% match rate for tracks that should match -- and even within albums some are matching and others aren't. Since I am apt to buy some "HD" tracks that are too big to upload to iTunes, I am left with unmatched and non-uploaded tracks that are not available in the Cloud.

Once upon a time, I think I could direct iTunes to try to match songs again. Now that we're dealing with Apple Music (not iTunes Match, I allowed my subscription to lapse when Apple Music assumed matching tasks). Is there a way to get it to rematch now? I am prepared to have iTunes start at Zero and rematch everything if necessary.

 

[Brookzy]

One way to re-run iTunes Match is to turn off iCloud Music Library, close the Preferences window, and turn it back on again. I believe that is the only way to do it at present.

From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204406:

Restart the matching process

Turn iCloud Music Library off, then on again.

On your Mac or PC:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Mac: From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen, choose iTunes > Preferences and turn off iCloud Music Library.
   Windows: From the menu bar at the top of the iTunes window, choose Edit > Preferences and turn off iCloud Music Library. Learn what to do if you can’t see the menu bar.
3. Close Preferences.
4. Mac: From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen, choose iTunes > Preferences and turn on iCloud Music Library.
   Windows: From the menu bar at the top of the iTunes window, choose Edit > Preferences and turn off iCloud Music Library. Learn what to do if you can’t see the menu bar.

 

[steve62388]

One way to re-run iTunes Match is to turn off iCloud Music Library, close the Preferences window, and turn it back on again. I believe that is the only way to do it at present.

From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204406:

That won't attempt to force rematch songs that have previously been uploaded, it will only help if the matching process has frozen (which is what the article says).

OP,

I subscribed to iTunes Match some years ago when it was first released and at the time approximately 1 in 10 of my songs didn't match. Fast forward a few years and I presumed Apple would have improved the matching algorithm. I forced a rematch and it did indeed improve, about half of those matches that originally failed then succeeded. About 1 in 20 of my songs are not currently matched. The only way I'm aware of to force a rematch is to remove the songs from your library (you will lose info like date added, no. of plays, star rating etc), wait for the changes to be processed by the Match servers (typically five minutes or so), and then re-add the songs.

When you use this process and you close and restart iTunes you might rarely come across what appear to be ghost duplicates of those rematched songs. They will be listed as in your cloud library but not on your local machine. Just delete those old cloud copies, wait a few minutes, and you won't see them again.

You won't need to go through this process with all your songs, just those that didn't match the first time around. Repeatedly and immediately adding the same song over and over again will never get you a match, I've tried it. The difference for me was that there was several years between my two match runs during which things obviously improved Apple's end.

 

[Brookzy]

That won't attempt to force rematch songs that have previously been uploaded, that will only help if the matching process has frozen (which is what the article says).

Apologies, I interpreted them as general instructions.

 

[Zimmy68]

In a perfect world, it would work like this.

The match would fail.
You right click the song and select an option (i.e rematch or deep match).
Apple looks at the tag info and does a deeper match on the similar song on their servers.
Asks the user, is this the song?

Too bad it will never happen, the publishers would scream bloody murder.

 

[StevenL94]

Ever since iTunes let you start matching songs back whenever, there have been some stubborn tracks that have refused to be matched even though they are clearly in iTunes. I lived with it, since we were talking about dozens of songs in a library of 1000's of tracks.

Lately, though, this is happening much more often. I'm averaging about 50% match rate for tracks that should match -- and even within albums some are matching and others aren't. Since I am apt to buy some "HD" tracks that are too big to upload to iTunes, I am left with unmatched and non-uploaded tracks that are not available in the Cloud.

Once upon a time, I think I could direct iTunes to try to match songs again. Now that we're dealing with Apple Music (not iTunes Match, I allowed my subscription to lapse when Apple Music assumed matching tasks). Is there a way to get it to rematch now? I am prepared to have iTunes start at Zero and rematch everything if necessary.

I remember with iTunes Match you just had to create a AAC or MP3 version. This would effectively duplicate the track. Then you would delete the original track while keeping the copy. Right click on the track and then click 'Add to iCloud Music Library'. Could be the same process for Apple Music as well.

 

[steve62388]

I remember with iTunes Match you just had to create a AAC or MP3 version. This would effectively duplicate the track. Then you would delete the original track while keeping the copy. Right click on the track and then click 'Add to iCloud Music Library'. Could be the same process for Apple Music as well.

If it's already compressed and then doesn't match you have run the file through compression twice, which will degrade audio quality. You would want to keep the original.