How do I add "non-Match" songs to my iPhone?

Hi,

You can convert tracks to higher bit rate in iTunes. See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1152

Ps If the tracks are not music but audiobooks, you can change media kind to audiobook.

Jim

Hi,

Wrong link!

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1550

Jim

What are the import settings for iTunes configured to be now?

I didn't see an answer to the question about adding non-Match songs to an iPhone. I spoke to Apple Care and was told that all I had to do was manually click and drag the non-Match song to the iPhone icon under Devices on the left side of the iTunes window. But this doesn't actually work. Any ideas?

Hi,

You cannot drag tracks to your iPhone whilst you are using match. You would need to turn off match then manually sync but this defeats the purpose of match.

Why are the songs not matching? What is the iCloud status of these tracks?

Jim

I appreciate what you are saying. But it seems to drive home the point that Match defeats my purpose of being able to listen to the songs I want to hear on my iPhone! 🙂

I don't know why the songs aren't matching. iTunes only shows one kind of cloud icon next to songs, viz, a cloud with a down arrow set in a grey background. There are no cloud icons next to any other songs. I'm not sure what their status is consequently.

What is really want is to match and also be able to keep the songs that don't match. Are these mutually exclusive goals? If so, then I don't want iTunes Match after all.

Also, I thought Match was supposed to convert the songs that are matched to 256 kbps. This has not at all happened. I don't see any that were upconverted at all.

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

I don't know why the songs aren't matching.

Just because a song does not "match" does not mean it won't be available in the cloud. Non-purchased tracks that are not matched will be uploaded to the cloud. You need to enable the iCloud Status. Pull down View > View Options and select "iCloud Status" then close the small window.

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

iTunes only shows one kind of cloud icon next to songs, viz, a cloud with a down arrow set in a grey background. There are no cloud icons next to any other songs. I'm not sure what their status is consequently.

Unless you've deleted the track from the iTunes library you shouldn't see any cloud icons next to songs that have been successfully processed. Did you delete any tracks?

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

What is really want is to match and also be able to keep the songs that don't match. Are these mutually exclusive goals? If so, then I don't want iTunes Match after all.

You do. The tracks in the iTunes library are not touched or modified in any way. They stay right where they are unless you delete them.

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

Also, I thought Match was supposed to convert the songs that are matched to 256 kbps. This has not at all happened. I don't see any that were upconverted at all.

This does not happen automagically. You must delete the track from the iTunes library and download the "matched" track. But upgrading only works for tracks that have been "matched." Tracks that have been "uploaded" are exactly the same as what was on your HDD. See my instructions above to enable the iCloud Status column.

Thank you. I see a greyed out cloud with a down arrow next to only some songs, and the whole song itself is also greyed out. Yet its iCloud status reports to be "Matched." Not sure what this means and I can't download it either. I have not deleted any songs. (I also see the greyed out condition with the same cloud next to songs the status of which is "Waiting" but I guess that makes sense. Though what it's waiting for I don't know, because it's been waiting for days now and I can't click on them to make them play. Also, others that have Waiting as their status have a dotted outline of a cloud and have no idea what that is either.)

But ... my biggest concern, quite honestly, is that I would like to be able to have songs on my iPhone that are not matched. I can't seem to get them to the iPhone. They report Waiting status and have the dotted outline of a cloud next to them, but the difference is I can play them in iTunes. I just can't get them to be on my iPhone. The Waiting status never changes after days of waiting and re-running Match. I am thinking of some custom mixes of songs that will never be on the iTunes store but which I want to hear on my phone. What is the way to get these kinds of songs onto my iPhone?

I used to have them on a playlist that I synced from iTunes to my iPhone, but with Match turned on, I no longer have the option to select playlists to sync. This is very puzzling and frustrating.

Thanks especially for clarifying how the upgrade to 256kbps versions works. It wasn't explained anywhere and your explanation was perfect 🙂

Rick

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

But ... my biggest concern, quite honestly, is that I would like to be able to have songs on my iPhone that are not matched.

You can, and will. The reason not all of your songs are currently showing on your iPhone is because they have not yet been successfully processed by the service for some reason.

First trouble shooting step is, in iTunes, turn off iTunes Match while holding down the Option key (Shift for Windows). Log out of your iTunes Store account. For good measure restart your computer. Launch iTunes and sign into your store account then re-enable iTunes Match.

Post back and let us know how that goes.

Well, I'm back! 🙂 And I'm glad to report that for some reason Match is now working. I have no idea why? I was on the phone with Apple Care and they gave up, telling me they had technicians working on this in the background and that my concerns had been noted. My songs are being matched or uploaded, albeit very slowly with respect to uploading. (More on that below). It's really nice too - after songs are matched or uploaded, I can then delete the songs and (in the case of matched songs), they're instantly replaced with 256kbps versions. Very slick! The uploaded songs just reappear in the same format as before. The best thing is I regained 50 Gb of space on my hard drive because of being able to delete all those songs!

Now, regarding uploading, the process is incredibly SLOW. It requires Match to restart multiple times and each round it only uploads a few songs, maybe 5 or 6. Why it only does a handful before it restarts Match I have no idea. And when it does restart, it cuts off whatever was playing so I have only silence.

All in all, I think Match can be really great, for the reasons above. But my frustration comes from the abysmally slow rate of uploading songs. Until they're all done, I can't get all the songs I want on my iPhone that aren't matched. And of course my favorites are exactly the ones that still haven't been uploaded, even though I've let my MBP on and running doing the Match process now for over 24 hours since I started.

YMMV.

Thanks to all for the helpful tips. The user community has been far more helpful than Apple's instructions.

I'm glad you're getting it sorted out.

Rick Fernandez1 wrote:

...I regained 50 Gb of space on my hard drive because of being able to delete all those songs!

iTunes Match is not a backup service and should not be relied on as such. You should read this User Tip: FAQ: Why iTunes Match Can Not Be Used as a Backup

Thanks, Michael, your help has been invaluable. It's all done! I got the message finally this morning from Match that it was "Done." After so long, it's a relief. But my question now is this: if Match is NOT a good backup and I've already deleted all my songs from iTunes, what is the process for getting them all back. Do I need to click on each song and download it again, then copy them to a backup drive (I have an NAS)?

Have a good day.

I'm glad you got it sorted out.

Regarding getting your music back... if you didn't make a backup before deleting the files there's a couple of things you can do. One is to re-download them from the cloud. You can highlight more than one track at at time, right-click and select "download." Or, any music you ripped from CD you could re-rip.

Whatever you decide to do you should then copy the music to an external HDD and have a backup scheme in place for when you add new music to the iTunes library.

Backup, backup, backup. If you do not backup your personal data you will lose it someday.