Original files after iTunes Match?

[wayland1985]

I signed up for iTunes Match a few years back in order to download my music to my phone on the go...

But with the Apple Music subscription, it's more or less needless... (right?)

However, I just bought a new iMac, and I want to transfer my original music files back to my new computer... But I'm having a hard time figuring out which files are the original at this point... With 10k+ songs, I really can't go one by one to check... Is there an easy way to tell which of my files would be the originals I had ripped from my CD's years back?

 

[Eisselmann]

Why don‘t you just download the files from the cloud?
I mean that‘s why you subscribed to iTunes Match after all, didn‘t you?

 

[wayland1985]

Why don‘t you just download the files from the cloud?
I mean that‘s why you subscribed to iTunes Match after all, didn‘t you?

Most of my original files were ripped from CD's years ago at a higher codec.

 

[Julien]

Most of my original files were ripped from CD's years ago at a higher codec.

Then you need to use a backup. Also your iTunes Library will be the original files unless you deleted them and downloaded from iCloud.

 

[Juicy Box]

I know that a lot of people had their iTunes Match libraries replaced by Apple Music files during the Apple Music Launch, and Apple was not able to recover these files after ppl's free trial to Apple Music expired. Although, I do not think this was supposed to happen and Apple corrected the issue in iTunes.

Actually, I had my entire iTunes Match library deleted during this time, and I never even did the Apple Music trial. Apple Support was not helpful at all. The Apple engineers looked into the issue and then they determined that I never stored any music in their servers before, which was complete bull. I paid for it for a few years, but never matched anything?

Luckily I had a back up of about 95% of my ripped music. But the situation made me re-think cloud storage, as I will never have anything important stored only in the cloud for now on.

 

[Tech198]

Most of my original files were ripped from CD's years ago at a higher codec.

Switch to "Song" pane. Files which don't match will stay in original quality.. you can go by "Kind" and/or "Bit-rate" ? If their anything else like AAC or higher/lower quality than how you uploaded, the they've been replaced.and you can ignore. No download need, just add the column in iTunes (Right click a column name and select what you want to display), then click on the heading go sort by.

You can also do smart playlist too, but its not reliable, as it mixes other stuff i find.. Sorting by column would be best.