With iCloud, can I remove music on computer to save room?

[afjarboe]

I have one of the recent MacBook Airs with only 128g harddrive. Since I only listen to music via my iPhone, can I now remove the files from my MacBook Air assuming it was bought through iTunes? If I do, it'll remain on my iPhone and be available through the icloud if I ever want it back on the computer, right?

Anyone see any problem with that?

 

[maflynn]

Anyone see any problem with that?

Yeah trusting an other entity that they'll have sufficient back up procedures.

Personally, I'd get an external drive to hold your music if space is an issue.

 

[afjarboe]

Yeah trusting an other entity that they'll have sufficient back up procedures.

Personally, I'd get an external drive to hold your music if space is an issue.

I currently do backup using time machine. But if I delete from iTunes to save space, it will eventually disappear from time machine too won't it? Since that mirrors your harddrive.

 

[d21mike]

At this point if you bought it all from iTunes then I believe they just maintain a list of what you bought and they don't actually keep a copy of the music just for you. So assuming they do not loose your account history then I do not think you would loose your access. This would be the same for people who only have a iPad and no computer. In my case I have all of my music on all of my devices because I don't have that much. It was all purchased from iTunes.

 

[d21mike]

Just read somewhere that if they do not have a license to deliver your particular song via iCloud then it would not be there. Not sure of the details of this so you may want to be ware. Another option i guess would be to have one of the iPods (maybe a classic) where you keep a copy of everything. Just a thought. Or just a special backup drive for music that is not part of Time Machine.

 

[bilbo--baggins]

It certainly sounds like you should be able to delete purchases and download them again later.

However, I still have some 128kbps iTunes Purchased music that is no longer available on iTunes (and so I cannot upgrade to 256kbps). One of my MANY unanswered questions about the new iCloud service is - what happens with content like this that's been removed?