Replace an Apple Music song entry with a local file

I'm using iTunes for PC. I have some cases where I've bought an album from Bandcamp, and I already have an Apple Music song for some of the songs on the album in my library. I'd like to change the iTunes entries for these songs to be using the local Bandcamp file on my hard drive. Pre-Apple Music, the process for something like this in iTunes for PC would be to right-click, choose the option to show the file in file explorer, delete or move the old file, then repeat the process and locate the new file you want to use. However, this process doesn't work for Apple Music files.


I don't want to just delete the Apple Music song and add the song to my library from the local file because then I lose the listening history - that is, the record of the number of plays, rating, date added, and last played. I use that data to create smart playlists. (See, I'm super weird.)


(I've googled this question and most of the hits you get are people trying to pirate Apple Music content by figuring out where to find the streaming files saved locally. To be clear, that is not what I am trying to do. I've legitimately purchased local files of these songs.)

To summarize my requirements:

  • In iTunes for Windows, change a song's source file from the Apple Music version of the song to a local file.
  • Retain the listening history of the song, including the number of plays, rating, date added, and last played.


I'm super willing to accept workarounds as long as they meet the requirements.

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Oct 16, 2023 10:44 AM

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Posted on Nov 6, 2023 1:33 PM

iTunes is funny about Apple Music tracks. I haven't tried this specifically but I think manually updating the location might fail to cause iTunes to match/upload the Bandcamp track so it would be properly unencumbered if you downloaded it elsewhere.


See Duplicate songs in iTunes - Apple Community. You can try adding the Bandcamp versions, then try to use Deduper to shift the ratings and playcounts from the Apple Music track to the local file. Finally you would remove the Apple Music track and then add the Bandcamp version to your iCloud library. Date Added isn't something you can normally set using a script. Are you prepared to have that reset?


tt2

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 6, 2023 1:33 PM in response to speedlimitdriver

iTunes is funny about Apple Music tracks. I haven't tried this specifically but I think manually updating the location might fail to cause iTunes to match/upload the Bandcamp track so it would be properly unencumbered if you downloaded it elsewhere.


See Duplicate songs in iTunes - Apple Community. You can try adding the Bandcamp versions, then try to use Deduper to shift the ratings and playcounts from the Apple Music track to the local file. Finally you would remove the Apple Music track and then add the Bandcamp version to your iCloud library. Date Added isn't something you can normally set using a script. Are you prepared to have that reset?


tt2

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Replace an Apple Music song entry with a local file

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