Transferring to Apple Music from local files

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Level 1

8 points

Transferring to Apple Music from local files

I’ve got 5,000+ songs across dozens of meticulously organised playlists with “iTunes Match / iCloud music library”. I quite fancy moving to Apple Music subscription, but when I used the trial my current 5,000 songs stayed exactly the same and ONLY new songs had the extra metadata (lyrics etc) and available in lossless.

Personally I don’t see the point of this as I’m not gaining any benefit for my exisiting library beyond iCloud music library (Ie 256kbps AAC).

Yes I could go through one by one and delete my local file, and then search for that one in Apple Music, and then add it to all the same playlists….no thanks. I don’t have that much time to throw at this.

Surely there must be a better way?? Currently it’s easier to switch to Spotify…

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Mar 13, 2022 7:41 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Jimzgoldfinch

Level 7

28,387 points

Mar 14, 2022 4:32 AM in response to Nzswedespeed

Hi,

Apple music includes iTunes Match features. Both use iCloud music library and the change over will be seamless. Without any specific intervention you existing library will be unchanged.

Apple Music has the added benefit of providing access to lossless and hi-res versions. Some but not all matched tracks can be removed and redownloaded as hi-res or lossless. Those tracks will have DRM and would only be available whilst you have an active Apple Music subscription. The tracks can be removed individually or in groups before redownloading. It is a manual process and will take some time to do. Make sure that you have a backup of your original files.

You should consider creating a separate library for Apple Music where you could opt to stream or download the individual tracks.

Jim

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Answer 2

Nzswedespeed Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 14, 2022 1:56 PM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply. I actually want their to be a change though (ie I want my 5,000+ current songs that are "matched" to match to the lossless version not the 256kbps AAC version I already have.

I am hoping there is a less manual solution than manually removing/redownloading the AM version and then adding it to all the same playlists again.

Cheers

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Transferring to Apple Music from local files

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