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iTunes Match - Best strategy to minimize uploads

I have just started playing with iTunes Match. I see some 300 tracks out of 1800 that will need an upload to the cloud, once Match has ended.

As the upload is very slow and uses the whole available bandwidth, I was wondering if there is a chance to mininize the number of tracks being uploaded.

I have read some messages of people suggesting to convert to AAC, then delete oroginal MP3, then launch again Match, blablabla.

Is there a well known working method on how to achieve this?

Posted on Nov 19, 2012 9:06 AM

17 replies

Nov 25, 2012 7:11 PM in response to ChutneyFerret

I'm not trying to talk you out of getting a refund if that is what you want, but just FYI...

I'm not sure what you were expecting, but uploading is never going to be instant. When I first signed up for the service I had something like 5,000 tracks, most of them in ALAC format, that needed to be uploaded. It Took a little over 3 weeks of letting it work mostly overnight.

How long this will take for you is entirely dependent on your internet upload speed. The slower the speed the longer it will take.

Dec 29, 2012 1:59 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

I've been experimenting about this for a couple of days and got some weird results I would like to share.

Technically, I agree with Michael Allbritton: converting a lower bit rate file to higher one doesn't add any "new" data to the file. But appearantly, it helps Apple to match tracks. Here's what I did:

I had a 128kbps mp3 album. The album is available on the iTunes Store but NONE of the tracks were matched. I tried the following method on 1 song first, and when it worked I did it for all tracks and matched all of them.

Converted the 128 kbps mp3s to Apple Lossless. (Yes, I know it doesn't make the files "lossless")
Copied the new "lossless" files to a seperate folder and deleted all versions of the songs (128 kbps mp3s and lossless ones) from the library / cloud.
Re-added the "lossless" files to the library, selected the tracks and clicked on "Add to iCloud".

Voila! All tracks were matched. Then of course, knowing that those "lossless" tracks were actually 128 kbps mp3s, I deleted them from the library with keeping them on the cloud, and downloaded the matched 256 kbps versions.

Force matching a whole album excited me at first but then as I kept on trying with other tracks, the success rate was not as good, but worked for approximately 50% of the tracks I tried.

By the way, I read on the forums that creating AAC version helps, too. But in my case, it didn't. The files were matched only when I created Apple Lossless versions.

iTunes Match - Best strategy to minimize uploads