Apple Music randomly deletes my music

I'm sorry to hear about the issues you're experiencing with Apple Music. It can be frustrating when your music library gets disrupted like this. Here are some steps you can take to try and resolve the problem:

1. **Check iCloud Music Library Sync**: Since you mentioned that you turned off and then back on the "sync library" function, it's possible that this action caused some synchronization issues. Make sure that your iCloud Music Library is enabled on both your Mac and iPhone. To do this, go to Settings on your iPhone, then Music, and ensure that "Sync Library" is turned on. On your Mac, open Apple Music, go to Preferences, and under the General tab, ensure "Sync Library" is checked.

2. **Check Your Internet Connection**: Sometimes, issues with syncing can occur due to a poor or intermittent internet connection. Ensure that you have a stable internet connection when syncing your library.

3. **Restart Apple Music**: Sometimes, a simple restart of the Apple Music app can resolve minor issues. Close the app on both your Mac and iPhone, then reopen it.

4. **Re-add Missing Music**: If your music is still available on your Mac, you can try re-adding the missing songs to your library. Make sure the songs are correctly imported into your iTunes library and then add them to your iCloud Music Library.

5. **Contact Apple Support**: If none of the above steps resolve the issue, it might be a more complex problem. Contact Apple Support for assistance. They can help you diagnose and resolve issues specific to your Apple Music account and devices.

6. **Backup Your Music**: To avoid losing your music in the future, it's a good practice to regularly back up your music library. You can create backups of your music files on your computer or use a third-party service to back up your music library.

Remember to exercise caution when making changes to your music library, especially when importing and syncing. It's always a good idea to have backups to prevent data loss in case of unexpected issues.

Apple's answer to me was to delete my post complaining about it.

Here is what I think is happening - no thanks to any of the three Apple techs who were supposed to help me.

If you have any songs in the cloud when you cancel Apple Music Apple deletes them. You can end up with a song in the cloud even if you never meant to by listening to a song from your library on a remote device.

When I realized the music I copied in from CD had been deleted after canceling Apple Music I got them back by signing up for Apple Music again which made all my music magically reappear. Then I downloaded each song from the cloud to my HD. Then when I cancelled Apple Music again all my music stayed.

Apple repeatedly and always deletes songs that I have transferred from CDs and that do not also seem to be in Apple’s library (maybe they don’t have the copyright? For ex various movie soundtracks) The songs initially transfer fine into my library and then a few days later the songs will be gone.

I'm using Windows, I've enabled libray sync today and about 15 years of iTunes library deleted from the file system, Apple what are you doing?

Now how can i restore all of this?

I Immediately cancel my subscriptions to Apple Music. I no longer want to have to deal with this software which is also unusable on Windows

I’m literally about to ditch Apple permanently because music that I’ve had since 2005, imported into iTunes via CD is now being removed from my devices and Apple says it’s unavailable. All this control over what content is on my phone is getting absurd. So much for trusting this brand…

At least once a year ITunes removes all the music I've had from old CD's. It just looks like a scam and they want me to buy it from them. I've kept an old IPod they can't access. It allows me to get my music back, but annoying.

Just to double down on this: This is happening to me for years now and I'm about to ditch Apple Music altogether. I'm planning to go "analogue" again, storing my music locally (on my computer, iPhone and iPad separately).

Apple doesn't seem to care about this issue at all. I wrote to their support years ago and nothing is improving. On the contrary, I'm losing even more songs on a regular basis.

For the know-it-alls: This refers to (like some stated before) music that was transferred from CDs that I own. This can also be a country-specific problem, I guess. In my library many German titles have been deleted (meaning they're still there, but greyed out).

To name one international example: I own everything from Garth Brooks, who is not in Apple's library and in the meantime none of the albums has a complete song list anymore.

I have an iTunes/Music collection I have built up over many years and many Mac products, from my original G4 MacPro, through Mac minis and now my M1MAx Mac Studio. I also own an iPad and an iPhone 13Pro. My music files have always existed on dedicated external drive directly connected to my Mac Desktop system, that ONLY contains my music, and I ripped the files to lossless ALAC files from my large collection of CDs. But it seems if I don't play the files very often, the Apple software drops the links and I am unable to play the songs over WiFi using the Apple Remote software. I have to go to my office and log into my mac Studio and click through all the files that have gotten "dropped" or they cannot be played. I have an exclusive Apple system - there is no windows gear in our home. I don't want to have to dump all of this to get a system that can store my music library reliably - I don't want to play every song tonight, but if I decide to play something a few months from now, I should not have to reload it all over again for it to work. My phone is NOT set to Optimize storage - I have a 2TB music drive connected to my desktop and I would expect once loaded that the files would remain there and not be removed by some rule that I know nothing about. How can I get this to work reliably?

Yup, I've had numerous bought and paid for tracks just disappear from my account entirely.

This is just another reason not to trust centralised cloud "ownership" and make sure that you have actual physical copies (turn your music into CDs).

Yeah, I joined Apple Music once and it deleted all of my imported music. Never again. I have tracks on there that just aren't on any streaming services (and never will be), so no thank you.

I think Amazon music is worse though. I've literally bought loads of digital albums from them over the years and was able to download them onto my computer and then onto my iPhone. Now you can't seem to download them at all - so why did I buy all that music?

I wish someone from Apple would get on here and give us an answer. Or even better… solve it. Apart from creative work, music is one of the primary reasons for buying into this Apple eco system. Yet here we are, all complaining about similar things. Cine in Apple… we all love you but sometimes you make this hard. I want all my music everywhere all the time. Surely this can’t be that hard.