itunes match replacing Apple Lossless Files with .AAC

Thank you so much 🙂 I think I'll get a 16gb iphone 5 instead of a 32gb and just use match 🙂

You're welcome.

I've just read this discussion thread which I found very interesting. I too have the vast majority of my music stored in apple lossless. I have a 64GB iPhone 5 so I can include as much music as possible on my iPhone. It would be great to get access to the rest of my music library through iTunes Match so I've just signed up for the service and my itines library is syncronysing with the iCloud service.

I've turned on iTunes Match on my ipad and everything looks great (I didn't have any music on my ipad, just a load of movies). When I turn on the iTunes Match service on my iPhone I get a warning that says "iTunes Match will replace the entire music library on this device."

From your previous responses I wasn't expecting that to happen. How do I leave my existing music library on my iphone in apple lossless and then access the rest of my library tjhrough the Itunes Match / iCloud service?

From your previous responses I wasn't expecting that to happen. How do I leave my existing music library on my iphone in apple lossless and then access the rest of my library tjhrough the Itunes Match / iCloud service?

You don't. You're using the iTunes Match library OR the library you synced from your computer. You can't do both (or do a subset of both). Ultimately if you're wanting to use any format that exceeds a 256kbps AAC then iTunes Match is pretty much useless to you.

In Michael's post above he says...

iTunes Match is really an either/or proposition. However it is possible to sync the ALAC files to the iPhone, then turn on iTM and use it. But what refresh the ALAC content you'll have to disable/enable iTM every time you want to sync new ALAC music.

From his comments I thought I'd be able to sync the Apple lossless files to the iphone and then turn on ITM to gain access to the extra tracks too. If I then wanted to add more apple lossless tracks, I'd turn off ITM on my iphone and resync with Itunes and then after turn ITM back on my iphone.

I don't know what iTunes Match Michael is using but the moment I turn my iTunes Match on my iPhone 4S (both iOS 5 and iOS6) it will replace the ENTIRE music library.

The only want to get a lossless (or anything but a 256kbps AAC for that matter) into "the cloud" is to find a way to stop iTunes Match from matching your tracks in the first place. If you can do that it will upload the tracks that don't match which enables you to subsequently download them in that same format.

infinite vortex wrote:

I don't know what iTunes Match Michael is using but the moment I turn my iTunes Match on my iPhone 4S (both iOS 5 and iOS6) it will replace the ENTIRE music library.

No, the service is not designed to work that way. I have never had iTM replace synced or downloaded tracks on my iPhone. However the alert is badly worded and it does sound like the files will be replaced.

infinite vortex wrote:

The only want to get a lossless (or anything but a 256kbps AAC for that matter) into "the cloud" is to find a way to stop iTunes Match from matching your tracks in the first place. If you can do that it will upload the tracks that don't match which enables you to subsequently download them in that same format.

iTunes Match does not upload lossless files. It creates a temporary 256 Kbps AAC track which it will then upload to the cloud and delete after it is uploaded.

No, the service is not designed to work that way

I've done it twice now and each time it had in fact gone and deleted my 44GB music library from my iPhone. I've just done it again now and while it hasn't deleted the entire 44GB it has removed some unknown 4GB and it's still "working" on something so watch this space. I need to do a restore on my phone anyway so thought I'd give it another go.

iTunes Match does not upload lossless files.

I seem to recall that it did. Maybe I'm mistaken. my apologies if I am mistaken.

I've re-ripped some CDs as Apple Lossless and they're on my iPhone as Lossless with iTM enabled. This is how I did it

Disable iTM on the iPhone

Delete the album in iTunes and on the iPhone

Re-rip into iTunes as Lossless

Sync the iPhone the old way (USB or Wi-Fi)

Re-enable iTM on the iPhone

iTM does NOT replace the Lossless tracks on the phone even though iTunes uploads AAC versions to iCloud.

The only way I know to make this happen is if you delete the Lossless tracks on the iPhone (you need to disable iTM to do this) then re-enable iTM in which case it will download the missing tracks from iCloud which will obviously be the AAC version.

It most definitely does replace lossless with aac or else someone is breaking into my house and doing it manually as an amusing prank.