Q: WARNING: iCloud Music Library just destroyed my Mac's iTunes Library

I also had the described problems (activated iCloud library, local iTunes library messed up - track tags and coverart were not usable any more), so I decided to choose an old library file - cover problems were solved, but a few titles remain messed up - some can't be found and some show wrong tracks.

Any solutions than listening to them separately?

I called AppleCare today, the Labor Day holiday in the U.S., and was eventually forwarded to a Senior Advisor. When I initially called in, I said I was calling about Apple Music. The recording prompted me to give a serial number for one of my Apple devices. So I was able to determine straight up that Apple was taking calls for Apple Music itself. That is unusual as Apple Music is a service and not a device.

The advisor was able to clarify many things for me that have been problematic since Apple Music began. He explained that, when you activate the iCloud Music Library, Apple identifies tracks in your collection to see if they have copies. Now their definition of a copy might be different from yours and mine. Let's say that you have a "live" copy of "Gold" by Spandau Ballet from 30 years ago, and you have EQ'd your version on some third party software and re-imported it back into iTunes. Let's say you originally got that song from one of SB's cds and put it on one of your own compilations with a cd cover that you made yourself. When Apple identifies that track, they don't care about any of the changes you made to it. They just make their version of the song, which may not even be "live" along with a different album cover and definitely no EQ, available in your Cloud. You may not even like their version of the song. This is how all of our libraries were screwed up. Beyond that Apple just uploads the rest of your library for streaming to your iOS devices. Here I'm talking about all of the music they can't identify in your library.

This advisor had been around long enough to have been an iTunes Match subscriber as well, so he was no new kid on the block. He and I agreed that Apple's iCloud Music Library would be a much better service if the subscriber could control the match and upload process rather than Apple. Wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose the music that you want loaded into the Cloud at your own pace rather than have Apple try to handle your 20,000 track library all at once? Something like that just has to be full of errors, and isn't that exactly what we have discovered? He even said that other advisors he discusses things with regularly have agreed ever since Match began that it would be best for the end user to be able to control the Match and upload of their libraries. Maybe there is hope yet.

This was a very interesting and rewarding discussion. I love Apple Music. I'm getting great recommendations in "For You" and "Connect". Streaming is great. I'm not using the Cloud because I don't trust it yet. Yet I don't need it. I buy the music I want anyway. So I will just continue to enjoy it and hope that one day I can control my own Cloud. If not, however, that's not anywhere near a deal breaker for me.I hope this information is valuable to some of you.

Just another person  „in love” with Apple Music, which tries to give a solution-tip with hard self-limiting.

BTW: talking about iTunes Match is wasting time. Apple Music and iCloud Music are same problematic and buggy for people with iTunes Match never enabled.

Not so fast. I hated AM initially. It screwed up my library like all the rest of you, but I restored it from a backup. I still hate the Cloud and won't use it, but I do like the other features of AM. Since I buy the music I like anyway, I don't need to download tracks from AM to carry with me on an iPad or iPhone. Yet I like the recommendations AM makes in For You and Connect and regularly stream them. I did try Deezer and Google and hated them as well. So I am not just another AM lover. I've been at this music game a long time, have a large collection and know what I want from a music service. I don't think any of the music services have the Cloud thing right and won't until they let the end user control the match and upload process.

Exactly, I don't know why they put everything together(Music player and Apple Music) They should do two separated apps. Not mixed together at all. They spoiled all my music library ( sorted out now), Apple distributing product which is not fully tested.

.......

You do realize that the $10 you pay for Apple Music Service per month gives you access to almost the entire iTunes catalog?   Let's see...buy less than120 songs for the same amount (per year), or have thousands of songs.  Gee...I wonder which is the smarter choice.

AND given that for just $5 more, a group of 6 can share a membership.

But you go ahead and keep on paying for individual tracks.

This happened to me with a 20,000-plus song library when AM was first launched - the library was completely messed up without any sort of pattern or reason. When it happened I turned of the cloud, cancelled the auto-payment, and basically continued to NOT USE Apple Music (sadly, I haven't used in over a year or two, since a similar disaster with Match when it was launched), and stayed with Spotify which never has these sort of technical meltdowns that require hours of IT work to fix.

This week I decided to check in and see if this problemhad been addressed because there are discovery features in AM I'd like to use, and also integrate it with my library which uses ratings and smart playlists for management. So I turned the cloud on and checked my library a couple hours later, and once again it is completely messed up. Songs that shows as duplicates are actually completely different doings by different artists, an those songs have been deleted. There must be over 1 or 2,000 instances just judging by the icons.

I hate this because I would still purchase songs thru Apple Music if I had a fully functioning players and streaming service, and want ti use one reliable player/streamer, but at this point I don't trust Apply anymore and don't see the point of making the same mistake over and over.

I agree totally. I tried it again, same thing. And for ME, ''For You" was complete garbage. Google used Songza which they purchased last year and it is miles better than For You. You just have to give it a minute to get your listening habits, if you click thumbs up on your songs it gets even better. And as for Cloud service it is the only service that gets it right. All of my bootlegs and rare tracks get uploaded into my library exactly how I want them, artwork intact as well. Using Radiant Player on my desktop instead of Google on the web is a big plus too. According to IOS 9 beta users, AM is no better and nothing fixed. Don't think it will be either going by Apple's recent track record with their software updates. Sad. AM is not for serious collectors and multi-genre listeners in my opinion. It's more cheeze whiz for the masses.

My 34,000 song library was entirely unaffected by AM, all music, wherever sourced is right where it is supposed to be.

After my iTunes library on my iMac was destroyed by AM's iCloud library function, and restored by Time Machine, I looked for an alternative for iTunes, but found no application that would give me the same convenience.

I then decided to switch AM off on my iMac, but switched on on my iPhone and iPad. Further on, iCloud library is switched off on my iMac and my iPhone, but switched on on my iPad.

In this way my iTunes library on my iMac is not corrupted any more, and I sync music with a cable between iTunes on the iMac and on the iPhone. My iPad is not synced any more with my iMac, but it can carry other AM tracks off line away from home. And I can still stream AM tracks on my iPhone, as it has AM switched on.

This setting works for me, but it's not good enough to pay for after the free trial period.

I wish I would've read all these solutions earlier!

The same thing happened to me but I only have 2,000 songs. It either deleted or overwritten my album artwork too then when I disabled iCloud Music Library, half my songs were deleted (physically stored ones). I just manually added them back in from my exHDD and manually did everything. .. So yeah.. I wish I found these solutions earlier.

This worked for me thanks a lot. I knew of this issue when Apple Music first came out but I just assumed that it would have been corrected by now. WTH Apple.. Fix this!!!

I actually kind of worked out a solution to this. I already keep backups of my library on my OneDrive for Xbox Music streaming so whatever stuffed my library up the first time could be reversed. ANYWAY.

1. Make sure all the music in your library is organised. Preferences > Advanced, tick the top two boxes (Keep folder organised and copy files to folder).

2. Stop the album art madness by unchecking "Automatically download album art" in the Store tab of Preferences.

3. Right click all music in your library and consolidate files to copy all the missing music into the iTunes Media folder.

4. Go to that Media folder in Finder/Explorer and copy the Music folder. Basically make a backup.

5. Turn on iCloud Music Library (Preferences > General, tick Show Apple Music and iCloud Music Library)
6. CLEAR EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIBRARY. Control/Command + A and delete.

7. Wipe the music on your devices by going to Settings > General > Storage > Music > Edit > All Music

8. Activate iCloud Music Library on your devices, and open your Music app to make sure no music is on your phone and in the Music database file on your device. It should be EMPTY.

9. Proceed to copy that folder you backed up into iTunes. Just drag it over your empty library. Needs to copy everything back into that iTunes Media folder so may take a while.

10. Show the list view of all your songs and watch the outlined clouds slowly disappear. It'll retain all metadata and sync your custom metadata to your iCloud Library and hence all your devices as you expect. While Album Art still isn't showing properly on my phone, I can live with that. At least now I can add Apple Music albums to my existing library as I expect it to work.

GG WP

iCloud library is just not going to work for large, esoteric libraries. I was in a best buy looking at Apple watches the other day. The Apple Rep there and I started talking about Apple Music. He was very defiant when I told him it was messed up. He said he has 50K songs and every one of them synced perfectly. I told him about this post and all the articles on tech sites and he acted like I was lying. So yesterday, I spent literally 5 hours trying again before my free trial ends. I created a brand new itunes library, named it Cloud, it SHOULD have opened empty, but it opened with 16, 000 songs out of my 30K songs. I sat and deleted thousands of songs as I wanted to start with a smaller library to test. I left AM and ICL off on my iphone. Once I weeded songs out of the library, I turned on ICL and let it start uploading/syncing to iCloud. No Go. After several hours, despite syncing very quickly to my surprise, it still replaced all my live and outtake cuts to studio versions. Even tracks purchased thru itunes. For example: Tom Petty outtakes from the box sets, were replaced with studio versions. Stone's live tracks all replaced with studio versions, and worse, The Beatles various box sets ie stereo, mono, and US versions all replaced with stereo versions. Not to mention art work still a mess. Apple has done nothing to fix this. Their silence on this tells me they never are going to fix it. Oh and my ''For You'' contained so much taylor swift, kanye west, all the apple supporters imo, I was like ''get me out of here" No thanks. I am cancelling AM and Spotify and sticking with Google Music--which uploads my tracks and artwork perfectly--and Radiant Player for Mac.