Using Apple Music tracks in a Photos slideshow and iMovie project...

Are you using iCloud for your Music Library? iTunes Match or Apple Music?

You cannot use songs that have not been downloaded to your computer. And you cannot use songs that have digital rights attached. It will depend on your system version, which songs you can use.

On macOS 13 Ventura I can again use the songs I played and recorded myself with GarageBand for the music track of my slideshows, as long as the songs have been downloaded from the cloud. It has not been possible on macOS 12 Monterey. I can also use songs from Apple Music, but then I cannot export the slideshow as a video.

Upgrading the operating system can make it necessary to redownload iTunes songs from the Cloud. For iTunes songs, open your iTunes library in the iTunes website. Download the songs that have a cloud icon next to them. That should make the songs recognizable in iMovie, and possibly in Photos.

Forget Apple Music. Apple Music is a streaming subscription service, intended only for personal listening and not for publication. One is only renting Apple Music songs, so to speak, and cannot create a broader license by downloading the songs to an app and publishing from there.

-- Rich

Thank you for adding your solution. It is apity, that we cannot trust the download status shown in Music, the same mess as in TV, where many films are shown as downloaded, but when we want to view them, they have to be downloaded again.

ChristofG:

Mark your last post, the one I'm replying to, as Best answer so that other users with a similar problem will know there's a solution to your problem in the topic.