Freeing up space by removing music

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Freeing up space by removing music

I have 38GB of music on my Mac. But I only listen to music via my iPhone, and I have a family subscription to Apple Music anyway. Furthermore I have iCloud music syncing turned on. Can't I somehow free up the 38GB now occupied by all this music? And if I delete all of it somehow from my Mac, will it still be available to me via iCloud? I've looked around online and in help and can't seem to find this specifically addressed. Thanks so much for any guidance!

PS--I'm running Big Sur on a late 2013 MacBook Pro. And I have 2TB on iCloud, 90% of it free.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Jan 29, 2022 2:10 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

274,174 points

Jan 29, 2022 2:29 PM in response to HudsonDude

I would recommend you backup the whole library to an external drive first, just in case you later find that a matched version of a song isn't quite what you're expecting. Once done you can select content in the library, right-click, and use Remove Download to free up the space used by the local copies leaving a cloud entry that you can stream.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,174 points

Jan 29, 2022 3:10 PM in response to HudsonDude

Where are you seeing the 15 items? See Identify cloud status icons in your music library on your Mac or PC - Apple Support. Ideally content that isn't successfully matched or uploaded wouldn't be removed by the remove download function.

tt2

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Answer 3

HudsonDude Author

Level 1

20 points

Jan 29, 2022 2:50 PM in response to turingtest2

Worked great, many thanks. So much free space! Funny thing is that 15 items remain taking up 133 MB. No big deal but I'm curious as to why. Is this typical?

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Answer 4

HudsonDude Author

Level 1

20 points

Jan 29, 2022 3:23 PM in response to turingtest2

Ah I see, these are "ineligible." Everything else is "matched" or "uploaded" or "Apple Music." Two or three in fact are iPhone voice memos that I have deleted. All good, thanks for your help!

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Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

274,174 points

Jan 29, 2022 3:31 PM in response to HudsonDude

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

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Freeing up space by removing music

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