iTunes Match - download all songs?

Hey folks, I'm a match novice (I think it's great btw) & have a few questions. When I add music to my iTunes on my pc - will it then be available on my iPad/iPhone automatically? And if iTunes match is not activated on a device am I still able to access the newly added track/s? Thanks in advance for any help!

Obviously you need to activate the particular device on which you intend to use the cloud functionality, but then the answer is yes, your music is available for local download or streaming.

stevomax wrote:

Hey folks, I'm a match novice (I think it's great btw) & have a few questions. When I add music to my iTunes on my pc - will it then be available on my iPad/iPhone automatically?

Yes. There may be a slight delay of the songs need to be uploaded but, in general, the new tracks will be added to iTM very quickly.

stevomax wrote:

And if iTunes match is not activated on a device am I still able to access the newly added track/s? Thanks in advance for any help!

No. iTunes Match must be enabled on any iOS device for the service to be available to that device. Once it is enabled then, yes, the music will be available to you on the device.

BTW, iTunes Match does not presently stream to iOS devices. All music is downloaded.

Here's the answer:

You probably have most of your physical musical collection on your primary computer, right? so the question you are really asking is: can't i have my physical copy on my iphone, so i don't have to worry about DLing from the cloud?

The answer is yes, you can. It is basically in the answer above. The way to do it is this:

1) starting on the iphone, go to settings > music and turn off itunes match.

2) for good measure, sign in to your apple itunes account on your computer, go to manage devices and turn off match for your iphone.

3) close itunes

4) restart your iphone, ideally unplugged from the computer

5) plug it back into your computer

6) Open the iphone sync screen and look under the music tab. you should see the old "sync music" check box from standard versions of itunes

7) choose whichever music in your collection you want to physically sync, or just check 'all' if that's what you want. I bought a 64G iphone so i would have plenty of room for my music, so that's what i was expecting to do.

8) sync your iphone

9) as i write this it is DLing the first 1000 of my tracks. with 6700, this is going to take awhile...

10) After you finish this, if you want, you can turn match back on and it will allow wireless sync of new stuff in your library. of course, you will be back to DLing it one song at a time from the cloud...

hope that helps...

I have an easy answer. Create a new play list call it whatever you want. Call it All songs. Add all songs in your your library to the playlist. If you have another computer with iTunes Match, click on the iClloud icon and it will download all your songs! Same with iPhone. Try it.

I created a playlist, added all songs, and hit download all on the bottom. I have around 4,500 songs and a super fast internet connection. However, each song takes about 30 seconds to download, and there is a 30 second to 1 minute pause between songs starting to download - only 1 song is downloading at a time. I remember in the past multiple songs (a lot if i remember right) would download at the same time and it didn't take this long. Anyone know why this is so slow?!

BTW - the reason im downloading all of this onto my iPhone is because my car system will not play any song from my iPhone that is not actually downloaded. The iPod App is disabled when I plug it in and I am forced to use the car interface to play songs. iTunes Match non-downloaded songs will not showup for me to play and because i like to shuffl my entire collection often, I like having them all local.

I've never seen more than 3 or so songs download at once (after purchasing), and since they share bandwidth those 3 songs each download at 1/3 the speed of one song by itself (approximately - there are other variables that affect speed). The delay occurs during the "processing" step - I don't know what it's doing at that point, but it is, unfortunately, normal.

Since iTunes Match is specifically optimized for listening - not bulk downloading - I think the limit to one song at a time is deliberate. You can't listen to more than one at a time, so that kind of makes sense.

You'll get faster results by turning off iTunes Match (in the "Settings" app, tap "Music"), syncing via USB cable with iTunes on your computer, then turning iTunes Match back on. The files that sync over USB will still be there after you turn iTunes Match back on.

You're right - if I am going to sync my entire library, I guess there is no point in using iTunes Match on my phone. For my iPad it makes sense as I do not use it in the car and therefore can play any song i want without it being downloaded to the device... Thanks

Actually I wasn't suggesting turning it off permanently - just during the sync (but you are correct - if you're syncing all your music, there's not much point in turning iTunes Match back on). I typically just sync a few select, large playlists, then turn Match back on, so I end up with a large selection of "local" files but still full access to the rest via the cloud.

But I also thought of another solution that would work well -- buy a new car. 😉

You would think the Acura ZDX, my car, would have a better tech package right...?

Anyways - I would assume most cars Music-from-iPod-Playing interfaces are not capable of showing iTunes Match (non local) music in their native car application? Not sure though. Anyways, will turning the ITunes Match back on after the iTunes sync retain that music?

Anyways, will turning the ITunes Match back on after the iTunes sync retain that music?

Absolutely, yes.

It displays a warning that the "music library" will be replaced - that's a little misleading, since the "library" is just the list of songs (it replaces the list of local songs with the list of all songs, and the list of all songs naturally includes the local songs). The actual mp3 or m4a files all stay exactly where they are.

Where is this download all button in iTunes on my Mac? I have selected all and right clicked and it is not there in the contextual menu as some have suggested. I have selected all and scrolled to the bottom of the list and there is no button that I see. I have gone into album view and selected all and scrolled to the bottom and there is no button that I see. Where is this mysterious button?

I have created a playlist with all of the songs that have a status of "matched", selected all of them and have looked for the download all button. I can't find it.

Linda

Linda, what specifically are you trying to do? Download music in iTunes on your computer? If so you must first delete the existing tracks in the iTunes library. Then you will be able to download.

Yes I was wanting to download all matched music on my computer. Everything that I have is mp3. I wanted to do as they advertize and get the best possible version of the songs. Rather than just storing them in iTunes Match in the cloud, I wanted a copy of my own...just in case there is a problem in the future.

Thanks, that makes perfect sense about needing to delete the old copies.

Linda

For others in the future, it seems as though Apple has fixed this problem as I just enabled iTunes Match on my iPhon5 and it did not erase the music that was stored on my phone. If it does, just create a playlist in iTunes labeled "all songs". Add your whole library to that playlist. Update iTunes Match. Go to your phone and download the entire playlist.Voila!