Missing iTunes Purchases After Installing iOS 18

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Level 1

17 points

Missing iTunes Purchases After Installing iOS 18

In the past, when I deleted a purchased album from my Library, it would automatically appear under Hidden Purchases across all of my devices. If I selected Unhide, that album would appear in the Purchased menu, and I could redownload it to my Library. Alternatively, on my phone, I could redownload a hidden album directly from the Hidden Purchases menu by tapping on the cloud icon.

After installing iOS 18, I noticed that a significantly large number of my Hidden Albums and Songs were missing from Hidden Purchases. Either entire albums or large portions of the albums (i.e. several songs) were simply gone. I looked in Purchased and they were not there either, nor were they in my Library. Looking an affected album up in the iTunes Store confirmed that the album was still available for purchase in my region, and the iTunes Store clearly indicates that I purchased the album and all of the songs on it.

I have tried the following steps to resolve this and make these impacted albums appear again but they do not:

Sign out/sign in to my Apple Account.
Sign out/sign in to Media and Services.
Disable/re-enable Sync Library.
Disable/re-enable Music in the iCloud menu.
Power on/off device.
Force close Music and Settings app.

Nothing is working. I spent 4 hours with an Apple Sr. Advisor who helped troubleshoot this and she confirmed that the 250 songs I had hidden were significantly less than what she saw hidden on her end (closer to 2,000). She tried unhiding the songs, but they did not appear for me when she did this. She wasn't sure what to do.

The issue hasn't been resolved and I am so frustrated with Apple and Apple Support, especially since the Sr. Advisor I just spoke with tonight continued to hint to me that purchasing music was an antiquated practice and that I should just download music from Apple Music instead. "iTunes Store" and "iTunes Match" are "dinosaurs."

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Is it really just me? It seems to me like something got busted with iTunes Match or syncing in general with iOS 18.

Extremely upset. Worst part is, some "Community Specialist" is going to come here and ask me to try the steps located here: If songs are missing from your music library after you turn on Sync Library - Apple Support or they are going to ask me to do some nonsense troubleshooting steps that I've already done, when the issue is clearly on Apple's end.

For the price I pay for the phone, the music, etc., I can't help but feel this is unacceptable. So frustrating! Please upvote if you are experiencing something like this!

iPhone 16 Pro

Posted on Oct 1, 2024 7:32 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

xbearex

Level 1

18 points

Dec 4, 2024 9:25 AM in response to Paulie1up

I had the exact same experience. Multiple calls to support. Spoke with the Sr advisor also. Essentially I was told that itunes is the old system and everything is moving to apple music. So in the interim there are going to be these gaps while they work out what is going on. What I was told is that essentially everyone at some point will need to move to apple music to have music. Itunes is going to be a thing of the past. I have apple music now. But my purchases all have significant gaps. I am choosing to trust that in time Apple will resolve this. They did before. I experienced this exact same thing when Apple music first came out. It took time but I got my music back eventually.

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Answer 2

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 29, 2024 6:07 PM in response to Paulie1up

Update: Oct 29th, 2024

My iTunes purchases, including hidden purchases, appeared to be restored after installing iOS 18.0.1. I was happy to see that the updated OS addressed the issue. Unfortunately, as of today, the issue has reoccurred. I attempted to install iOS 18.1 in the hopes that it would resolve it, but it did not. This defect is extremely frustrating. It seems that with the release of iOS 18.1, the issue has been reintroduced.

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Answer 3

getthept

Level 1

15 points

Dec 6, 2024 4:22 PM in response to Paulie1up

I’m missing quite a bit of music that I purchased from Apple over the years and they have never reappeared. They don’t show in hidden or under Purchased. Driving me crazy. I prefer to own my music rather than depend on streaming since I didn’t have an iPhone until 2016 but have had iPods since 2007. My music started disappearing after I used the Match service and had to let it go during a bad financial situation in 2015. Support has been useless and maintains that I either didn’t buy them or was streaming years before streaming was available. What’s interesting is that if I have Apple Music playing it will randomly play music that I purchased that that it would have no reason to play unless it had been associated with my iTunes account before. In 2010 I had 640 purchased songs and now after purchasing many more, I have less than 600. Every update removes more. Frustrating.

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Answer 4

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Dec 13, 2024 12:46 PM in response to Paulie1up

Update: Dec. 11th, 2024

Unfortunately, this defect is still occurring in iOS 18.2.

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Answer 5

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Dec 4, 2024 11:38 AM in response to xbearex

Thanks for sharing your experience xbearex! That’s not too different from what I was told, though the way it was communicated to me was more obfuscated. It was more or less “hinted” to me that iTunes would be going away.

I am taking your approach and trusting that Apple will resolve this issue in time. That said, I still feel there is value in updating my post to let others know whether or not the issue has been fixed.

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Answer 6

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Dec 13, 2024 12:57 PM in response to getthept

Thanks for sharing your experience, getthept! Yeah, I am a lot like you; I prefer to own my music rather than depend on a streaming service. It can be especially frustrating when a track or album is pulled from a streaming service (usually over rights issue) and is no longer available...unless you've purchased it on iTunes, at which point it has always been available to redownload, up until this defect was seemingly introduced in iOS 18.

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Answer 7

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Jan 3, 2025 3:20 PM in response to Paulie1up

I would be remiss not to mention that this issue is also affecting my movies and TV shows. For example, if I remove a movie from my Library, it should appear in the Hidden Purchases menu, but it does not. If I locate the movie in the Apple TV app and select the price icon, I am given the option to redownload the movie, but it does not appear in my Library. Essentially, my purchase appears to have vanished and is no longer accessible.

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Answer 8

picas

Level 7

0 points

Oct 1, 2024 8:54 PM in response to Paulie1up

See if they show up under Account Settings in the Music app itself by tapping on your Profile > Account Settings.

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Answer 9

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 1, 2024 9:08 PM in response to picas

Thank you for your suggestion. Unfortunately, they do not appear here.

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Answer 10

Paulie1up Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 19, 2024 1:34 PM in response to Paulie1up

Update: Nov 19th, 2024

This defect is still occurring in iOS 18.1.1. I really hope that the team includes a fix in 18.2 and subsequent updates. Personally, I am extremely frustrated with this.

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