iTunes Match: cannot delete anymore only hide

Yes, that's how a digital locker works. DON'T CARE.

The problem is that Apple's new terminology is confusing as to how "hidden" tracks count towards my iTunes Match total. CARE. If a track is hidden in iCloud is that the same as iTunes Match? I don't know. How can I know, short of mindreading? Clearly, Apple has done a **** poor job of explaining that.

Or let me put it to you another way: If it's so incredibly obvious that iTunes Match is completely synonomous with iCloud, why isn't iTunes Match under "iCloud" in the support forums instead of iTunes?

The more you respond, the clearer it is to me that the deficiency lies with you, not Apple. The new terminology is far clearer with respect to what's actually happening. You either don't get it, or get it and don't like what Apple is telling you. In either case, your issue is with Apple and you should leave feedback with them on this.

Does really Apple want to keep 5 version of Matchbox?!

Apple probably doesn't care in this department. Encoding works in such a manner that your 96kpbs (for example) version is most likely identical to someone else's. In the grand scheme of things, if they keep 5 versions of that song for 1,000 people, they're just fine on storage.

Why some matching doesn't occur has to do with the waveform of the file. If it doesn't match well, iTM won't match them up. This is a technical issue that Apple either (1) needs to fix or (2) has decided works for their purposes. It's admittedly frustrating from the user's end, but Apple can (failry) say "Just rip it in 256kbps and we promise to store that file on our servers. It's the same as if we had supplied it to you." If it's a case where a user doesn't have the CD anymore, Apple can (again, fairly) say "you don't have a license to play the song, so we're under no obligation to provide you with a match. In fact, we're being generous here." (And they'd be right).

My experience is that ripped songs match with far less precision that songs purchased from, say, Amazon. This makes sense, as the recording labels supply all the vendors with the same song. Ripping gets a little fuzzier, since you could borrow a friend's CD, rip it (which is illegal), upload it, match it, then have a "legit" copy. Apple's following the law far closer than most users, so these behaviors are expected. Those who own their music legally suffer a bit, but it's illegal users who deserve the scrutiny, not Apple. The notion that iTM could "launder" songs was one that I'm sure didn't please the recording labels.

This is why I don't like it and this is why I will not renew a second time my iTunesMatch: there is no reason I pay $ 27 for this (I'm Canadian..and even if our dollars were at the same value we pay $ 2 more just because.... ).

You've got a fair point here, and it remains to be seen how successful iTM will be. For my $25 a year, having a copy in the cloud is well worth it. That said, I'd like to see a higher matching rate of my ripped CDs, so I'm certainly in agreement here. As for "hiding" vs "deleting," I see that as a red herring. If the problem is that a user can't delete a song, and then force a rematch, I'm a bit more sympathetic. If the problem is simply "I dislike 'hide' and prefer 'delete'" (when hiding is what's actually been happening all along), then it's a somewhat pendatic concern.

Happy that I found that someone else has the exact same question about iTunes 11.0.2 new vernacular when 'deleting' an iTunes Match song. Not happy that we have no idea what's going on in Apple's mind though.

I'm inclined to assume the behavior is the same as before (it's off your record completely whether Matched or Uploaded), it's just new and innaccurate verbage. iTunes Purchased music is much clearer, you delete it, hide it but it never leaves your iTunes account ever ever. That's all I have to say.

Notice the two different dialogues. The first is pre-iTunes 11.0.2 and the second is at 11.0.2.

"I'm inclined to assume the behavior is the same as before (it's off your record completely whether Matched or Uploaded), it's just new and innaccurate verbage."

Anecdotal evidence points to the opposite. Uploaded songs that are "hidden" and then re-uploaded are done so at unusually high speeds. There no definitive word from Apple, but it appears that, at least in the short term, Apple is, in fact, hiding your song rather than deleting it.* This is still new, and anecdotal evidence doesn't always hold up, but it seems that to assume the song is deleted could well be a mistake. (But so far, only Apple seems to know for sure)

*Apple certainly has the storage capacity, and bandwidth costs more than storage, so it's cheaper to save the file rather than allowing it to be uploaded again. This also helps eliminate the "delete & re-match to get a 256kbps AAC" trick from pre-11.

I simply want to know how to permanently delete previously uploaded songs and then re-import them to force iTunes Match to re-evaluate songs that did not originally match.

iTunes Match has frequently properly matched the song on the second or third try, but not on the first try.

Hi,

There does not appear a way to permanently delete a previously uploaded track. I believe that this has always been the case even before the present change to "hide" tracks.

Any time I have tried to rematch (now and in the past) a previously uploaded track, I have not been successful as match remembers that the track has been previously uploaded.

The only way I have got a match for such tracks is to convert them to another format i.e. from AAC to mp3 or vice versa. Sometimes I have had to edit track length to match itunes store version. I have a good deal of success but there are many tracks that don't want to match even though there is no apparent reason why they shouldn't.

JIm

You can argue about semantics all day. Maybe in previous versions of iTunes "delete from cloud" meant "hide from cloud." With the latest version, if I no longer want songs to show up in an iTunes-match synced library and so delete or "hide" them, THEY STILL DO. And therefore still count toward my song limit. Something, besides the wording, has CHANGED. Xian Rinpoche, you can refute it a hundred millions times. I don't imagine all of these people are idiots; I'd not consider myself one most days. Used to be you could delete 500 songs from the cloud and therefore, you know, free up 500 songs on the cloud. Alas...

Hi,

Tracks that are hidden in match are not counted towards your 25k limit. Once you "hide" the tracks, the number of tracks in match are reduced by the same number.

I currently have 24,558 matched or uploaded tracks in my library plus around 7,500 purchased tracks. I also have 5,600 tracks with "removed" icloud status - all those tracks were previously uploaded. I also have another 1,475 "removed" tracks that were previously Matched.

I believe there are many many who do something similar to make the most of the 25K limit.

Jim

The Autarch wrote:

With the latest version, if I no longer want songs to show up in an iTunes-match synced library and so delete or "hide" them, THEY STILL DO. And therefore still count toward my song limit.

In that event, you're either doing something wrong, or your iTunes Match is not behaving as it should. I have no problem hiding tracks and getting those "slots" freed up. Jimzgoldfinch appears to be having similar success. Perhaps the problem is not with iTunes Match but with your particular iTunes installation, etc. Try logging out and logging back in.

Something, besides the wording, has CHANGED. Xian Rinpoche, you can refute it a hundred millions times.

At no point have I stated that nothing other than the wording has changed. I have merely taken a few, reasonably-educated guesses as to what Apple's rationale for going from "delete" to "hide" was, and surmised that it could well be that songs have always been hidden and the terminology now reflects that. This does not mean that the manner in which Apple hides things has not changed, nor does it mean that they weren't deleting before and are now hiding. We'll have to wait for Apple to (hopefully) set things straight. Until then, we can only fit theories to evidence.

All the responces were very entertaining to read but still did not give me the answer I was looking for.....in my opinion this is the major issue with forums today. Everyone wants to be right, people want to spend time convincing the OP that they are wrong in the question without giving an answer or even being helpful.

Scott...I think I made some headway on this. I too get the Hide option when I try to delete a song. My client that I got the question from wanted to clean out some old songs that her son how downloaded in her iTunes year ago.

SO on your song that you want to delete....hit the cloud button and download the song to your computer....then delete it....you should get the old delete popup....there is a (also hide from iCloud box) and after you delete something you get the "do you want to keep the file or delete it" popup.

I "think" that it is not letting you delete things from the cloud because it's not really your song to delete. It's a high bit version Apple lets you borrow. Just a guess and I hope this helps.

bstephens wrote:

... but still did not give me the answer I was looking for.....

I'm not sure what answer you are "looking for" but since this is a user-to-user forum and no Apple employees participate we can only offer educated guesses about the inner workings of iTunes Match. What we do know is with the release of iTunes 11 the wording of the iCloud dialog box that pops up when you delete a song from the iTunes library was changed, probably to better reflect what was actually happening on the server. Until Apple comments publically, which they are unlikely to do, this is all the "answer" we are likely to get.

The problem with not being able to delete songs is the 25,000 limit. So this is a change that creates an actual problem, not just an issue of wording.

It has been verified above that hiding songs takes them out of the "count" for 25k songs. If this is not the case with your ITM, you'll want to contact iTunes Support to get it straightened out. Hidden songs do not count against the 25k limit.