How do I restore purchased Apple Music songs that were accidentally deleted?

How do I restore purchased Apple Music songs that were accidentally deleted? I tried Google, but it came up with the following, which is not working on my iMac M4 with Golden Gate 27.0 for two reasons. When I go through the steps in the first section, only about 10 songs show up, yet I have purchased hundreds. Under the trouble shooting section there is not an option to View or Manage my account once I click on "Account" at the top.



Here is a screenshot of the album that I purchased two songs on a few years ago. You can see where song number 4 (Sound and Vision) says it was purchased, but no matter what I click on, I can't download it again. You can also see that song number 7 (A New Career In A New Town) gives me the option to play. These were the only two songs purchased, and number 4 was the one accidentally deleted.




iMac (M4, 2024)

Posted on Sep 27, 2026 2:08 PM

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Posted on Sep 29, 2026 6:58 AM

Well, that got me started in the right direction, so thank you! My mistake and solution (for anyone experiencing the same problem) I kept going to iTunes Store where it showed that I had already purchased the song, but it still would not play more than a 30 second sample clip.


So I went to the Get Info, then to the File tab, which confirmed the song was in my Apple Music folder on my iMac. From there I went to the Sorting tab. There was a single "sort as" line that did not have the artist listed (all of the others did), so I filled that in, and saved it.


From there, instead of right-clicking on the album and going to "Show in iTunes Store" (which didn't help at all) I went to "Show in Apple Music". When the album came up THIS time there was an option to add it to the Library, which finally worked.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 29, 2026 6:58 AM in response to picas

Well, that got me started in the right direction, so thank you! My mistake and solution (for anyone experiencing the same problem) I kept going to iTunes Store where it showed that I had already purchased the song, but it still would not play more than a 30 second sample clip.


So I went to the Get Info, then to the File tab, which confirmed the song was in my Apple Music folder on my iMac. From there I went to the Sorting tab. There was a single "sort as" line that did not have the artist listed (all of the others did), so I filled that in, and saved it.


From there, instead of right-clicking on the album and going to "Show in iTunes Store" (which didn't help at all) I went to "Show in Apple Music". When the album came up THIS time there was an option to add it to the Library, which finally worked.

Sep 28, 2026 7:38 AM in response to picas

But I did unhide the song before I made this original post yesterday. Still unable to download. So I did the typical restart thing, then tried again. No change. I went back to the list of hidden items. While there are a few songs that I deleted in the hidden list, this song is no longer on the list.


Let me add the following information. I purchased the song from the iTunes Store a few years ago. I did NOT have a subscription to Apple Music at the time. Currently I have 3 free months of Apple Music due to a recent AirPod purchase. So under Apple Music I added the rest of this album to a playlist on my iMac. I did not purchase the rest of the album, so if I do not continue with the Apple Music selection, most of these songs will disappear, with the exception of the two I purchased a few years back.


But right now, with the subscription, here is what I see in the temporary playlist...



So on the line with the song "Sound and Vision", off to the right is the circle and arrow that shows up on all of my purchased songs, and hovering over it, it says "downloaded". Same thing with the "A New Career In A New Town" song that I purchased a long time back. All good so far, right?


Now, if I go over to where ONLY my purchased music is (not my subscription Apple Music), the song is no longer there when I go to this album. Only one of the two remain, whereas before this accidental deletion, there were both songs.



If I go over to the list view, same thing when I search by artist, or search by song title. The song is no longer there. So since the song is not hidden, where did it go?

How do I restore purchased Apple Music songs that were accidentally deleted?

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