Turn off iTunes Match Permanently, and....

Steven,

I decided to stop using iTunes match also. I couldn't find a way to stop Genius from forcing its way onto my iPhone and iPad. Then I found this in Apple's Terms of Service:

You will not be able to disable Genius while using iTunes Match, so if you prefer that we do not collect and use information from your iTunes library in this manner, you should not use iTunes Match.

They should have also added "and force you to view Genius Mixes above all your playlists and not allow you to delete them" also. Anyway, that did it for me. So here is how I disabled it and what worked for me:

Step 1: Turn off iTunes Match on your computer
(iTunes: store > Turn off iTunes Match).

Step 2: Turn off iTunes Match on all your devices
(iPad: settings > music > iTunes Match [off]).

(iPhone: settings > music > iTunes Match [off])

Step 3: Sign off of your iTunes account
(iTunes: store > sign out)

Step 4: Disconnect your iPhone and/or iPad if they are connected to your computer. Then reconnect.

(Now you see the Sync Music dialog back and you should no longer see the iCloud message).

Sync away and enjoy your new found freedom.

Hope this helps.

If you see this cloud icon next to "Music," then iTunes Match has not been disabled:

In iTunes pull down Store > Sign Out. This will both sign you out of your iTunes Store account and disable iTunes Match. To sign back into the account Pull down Store > Sign In.

Hi Liz,

The menu item to turn off iTunes match on your computer is actually not in the iTunes store where you by music and movies. It is a menu item on your computer. When you have iTunes running on your computer you should see it in your menu. If you are on a mac see the attached screen shot as an example. (Mine says "Turn On iTunes Match" because it's already off on my machine but yours should say to turn it off.)

Here are the instructions from my earlier post to help you with the rest of the proceedure:

-----------------------------------

Step 1: Turn off iTunes Match on your computer
(iTunes: store > Turn off iTunes Match).

Step 2: Turn off iTunes Match on all your devices
(iPad: settings > music > iTunes Match [off]).

(iPhone: settings > music > iTunes Match [off])

Step 3: Sign off of your iTunes account
(iTunes: store > sign out)

Step 4: Disconnect your iPhone and/or iPad if they are connected to your computer. Then reconnect.

(Now you see the Sync Music dialog back and you should no longer see the iCloud message).

-----------------------------------

Good luck.

CtChrisf, your instructions fixed my problem although I was having the opposite problem, sort of. My Mac was telling me I couldn't transfer music to my iPad because iTunes Match was turned on on my iPad, however, it was not. iTunes Match was off on ALL my devices and Desktop, After a reset of my Network as you prescribed, problem fixed! Thank you! Now, if I can only get my Family Sharing to work in Apple Music, I'll be a happy camper. 🙂

I tried your suggestion of signing out and then signing back in. It didn't work. I turned off the iTunes match on the STORE submenu in iTunes. Now it says: "Turn On iTunes Match." But when I connect my iPhone with a cable to my MacBook Pro and try to manually put some of my music in my iPhone, the message I get is: "I Tunes match in On." !!!#@#@#

Any other suggestions?

i was having this problem so i looked it up to see if i was alone. in the course of doing that i noticed that iTunes Match has seemingly fixed itself. Im guessing the issue was a slow wifi connection because i got the error message only in the Apple store (the guy there couldnt help either) and at home before replacing my slow connection. but now it had a chance to clear out whatever its been doing and no error.

so far...

philpants87 I am not excatly sure what would prevent it from working in your case. Make sure you start by turning off iTunes match on both you computer and your phone, also don't forget to sign off on your iTunes account (this is often missed). Other than that, it should work.

It's official, I HATE iTunes match. It is SO annoying.... no control for when to tell it to update, instead it does it EVERY time I open iTunes. NOW, it is replacing my original artworks for my Bollywood hits with its own boring iTunes artwork. So my iPod has the originals and iTunes has different ones........ really! Apple.

So, goodbye iTunes Match, guys I was able to turn mine off. It's really easy to do. Thanks for the Q & A 🙂 ................ back to doing damage control.

😁 I love your comment Aucaman! Apple NEEDS to make it better with more options/settings, IF they want our $$$$. Love Apple, but they need to get back on track and quit with all these half-*** services that are pushing out.

Thanks, Rod.

Like other responders, I found iTunes Match a terrible annoyance. I couldn't readily locate helpful Apple documentation about this issue, which is particularly troublesome given how intrusive and unsettling the iTunes Match approach is. It may work for others, and some day something like it may even work for me, but iTunes Match is a solution worse than any problem.

My guess is that many other users will find your explanation understandable, simple to implement and immediately effective -- in other words, the kind of answer every user hopes to discover in forums, but rarely finds in a single, succinct post. No balderdash, no unnecessary criticism of posters, just solid info.

Nicely done.

I had close to 25,000 songs in computer and was using iTunes Match. I also want to stop using it but when I turned off iTunes match, my song total went down to about 14,000 songs. How do I get back the other songs that were being "stored" in the cloud??

Thanks!!!

Sign-in to iTunes Store, start iTunes Match - allow the process to complete.

In your library view switch on iCloud Status and iCloud Download fields - sort on Download, select all with cloud symbol and download them to your local library - complete secure backup.

You should now find that you have all of your Songs locally - at this stage you can switch off iTunes Match with no reduction in the Songs available.

Hi Mracole...

Thanks for trying to help. So I switched back on Itunes Match and the songs are all there. I sorted by Cloud status and there are over 12,000 songs. Is there an easy way to select all those songs to download? And lastly, how exactly do I download them to my local library?

Thanks again for the help!!

Q1. Is there an easy way to select all those songs to download?

Yes

Q2. How exactly do I download them to my local library?

In library view, sort on iCloud Download.

Select 1st Song available for Download - scroll to end of download set & shift-click, to select all Songs not held locally - right click & select download.

Awesome thanks for your help!

I have another annoyance that maybe you can help with. When you upload a CD that has multiple artists like a compilation cd or soundtrack...iTunes doesn't keep the album as a whole but rather breaks up all the tracks and puts them in alphabetical order by artist. Now I know you can go and highlight all the tracks and "link" them together but to me that is a pain. Is there any way to set a default in iTunes that it keeps all albums downloaded together and not split up the tracks?? Even in an 1 artist album that has a guess appearance (Like Kenny Chesney feat. Zac Brown) it takes that 1 track and separates it from the rest of the album. To me this really makes no sense at all and I hate to have to manually go in there and fix these.

Thanks again!!