Apple Music add to library button on iOS 14.5

Hi can16358p,

We appreciate you reaching out through Apple Support Communities for help with these changes in Music app, and are glad to help in any way we can.

When searching for music in Music, it's possible to switch to Your Library to search only those songs in your library. There isn't an option to see whether a song is in the library when searching Apple Music.

Otherwise, in addition to tapping on the ellipsis, you can press and hold on a result to see if the option to Add to Library appears. On song results (not album, artist, or playlist results), swipe right to left to see if a plus sign appears. If you see a downward-facing arrow instead, it indicates the song is in your library, but not downloaded for offline play. Tap on it to download, or swipe left fast.

If only the trash symbol appears, the song is in your library and downloaded. Tap on it to delete from library and device.

Here's a link with more information:

Add and download music from Apple Music - Apple Support

If you'd like to provide feedback about this, here's a direct link:

Product Feedback

Have a great day!

Agreed. Many user preferences can differ, but fewer steps is always good. On MacOS, my click-less solution here is to use the View->As Songs table view sorted by the Date Added column, as I can identify songs that are not in my library, but are in a dynamic Apple Music playlist that is in my Library. With this the Date Added view, the time of the playlist update sets the date for songs that are not in my library, so any songs with a date before or after are already in my library.

Use case: Curating songs to personal playlists from the New Music Mix playlist on a weekly basis, need to see at a glance which songs have already been added.

I agree with the original poster on this. I just had to update my phone so my Apple Watch would pair and I was greeted with the unhelpful ellipse to add songs. Now if I want to add a song to my library I have more to go through rather than adding it quickly. If I wanted to make the song play next I would use 3D Touch. If there’s a way to simplify the cluster of options that come up please let me know cause there’s too many that pop up to just add a song to a library. I bet I have well over 6,000 songs on my phone and the + was my best friend. The ellipse has become a royal pain to use and made the experience of Apple Music worse. You guys decided to make a change that likely not one of your users wanted. If I could rate this new version it would be 1 star. And unless you bring back the + I won’t be impressed with it. I will be debating finding another music provider that is more user friendly.

Thanks for explaining the various steps how to find out whether a song is already in the library.

The big downside of those steps is that they are extra steps. Before iOS 14.5 and macOS 11.3, it was possible to see at a single glance for all songs of an album or playlist whether they are already in the library or not.

Having to perform those extra steps for every single song ... that's only annoying and a big step backwards.