WARNING: iCloud Music Library just destroyed my Mac's iTunes Library

This *****. All of my playlists on my iPhone are gone. I just wanted to try out Apple Music. How do I turn off the iCloud Music Library option that I do not want on my phone?

HOURS wasted. My playlists have hours invested into them as I'm a music professional. This is a huge ******* deal. I switched back to Apple and iTunes a few months ago because of the music management... and then this.

I've put a days worth of work into re-ordering, creating playlists, editing files in the last few days and when I try to restore everything back to PRE update my library goes bonkers and all of those updates are lost.

To just walk into somebody's files (purchased on Google Play, Amazong, etc) and change it all. That's an invasion of privacy. The workings of a virus. Intentional or not.

Apple, FIX it. Now.

I do have one question. I don't use Match (I don't even know what it is) and I do not store anything in the cloud. I only store files locally, edit and manage those files and create playlists from the media.

Right now, my Album Artwork is crazy. What caused this? Should I be safe? I can't figure out a system in place for auditing this. I've added album art in iTunes but it won't carry over to iPhone during the sync. Aye.

Advice please.

if you have a time machine backup just recover the itunes folder from an earlier backup and disable icloud music on all of your devices until apple figures it out

no no time machine. there must be another option? I can't tell if I have as big as a problem as others that use cloud and match.. I also can't remember if I turned on apple music . My head hurts.

I noticed that the fine print on the Apple agreement for downloading their music app contains the following when/if you unsubscribe [I formatted]. I am not downloading this thing. I have a library with hundreds of songs not purchased thru iTunes and would have a heck of a time replacing them if they somehow got uploaded to their cloud, and I have no desire to subscribe either. All this is one reason I delayed getting Apple products for so many years..their demands for control. They can be very good at what they do, but they can also be quite the nazis when controlling what people can and cannot do with equipment and apps after purchase. Its like buying a Porsche then having the dealer tell you where you can drive and how fast and what gas you have to use. Wrong in so many ways.

Under Apple Music Subscription towards the end of the agreement:

....."If you buy a subscription to the Apple Music Service (an “Apple Music Subscription”), Apple will automatically charge the payment method associated with your Apple ID or the payment method associated with your Family Sharing Organizer’s account on a recurring basis until you turn off automatic renewal. You may turn off automatic renewal of your Apple Music Subscription at any time in the Account Settings menu on your device or computer, or in the Settings app on your device. If you turn off automatic renewal, you will continue to have access to the Apple Music Service for the remainder of your Apple Music Subscription term. When your Apple Music Subscription term ends, you will lose access to any feature of the Apple Music Service that requires an Apple Music Subscription, including but not limited to access to Apple Music Products accessible through the Apple Music Service or stored on your device, and any songs stored in your iCloud Music Library.
Apple Music Subscription purchases are final. Your payment method will be charged no more than 24 hours prior to the expiration of the current Apple Music Subscription period.".....

Under iCloud Music Library which follows... So if you have a lot of your music in iCloud not purchased from the iTunes store, looks like you are s.o.l.

ICLOUD MUSIC LIBRARY

...."The iCloud Music Library feature is available to Apple Music subscribers who log in with an Apple ID. iCloud Music Library stores and permits you to remotely access songs and music videos purchased from the iTunes Store and other songs, along with related metadata, playlists, and other information from your other Apple Music-enabled devices. iCloud Music Library is turned on automatically when you set up your Apple Music Subscription. You will be prompted to enable iCloud Music Library when you log in to Apple Music on additional devices. You can enable iCloud Music Library in the Apple Music app settings on your device and in iTunes General Preferences on your computer. You can store up to 25,000 songs in iCloud Music Library. Songs purchased from the iTunes Store do not count against this limit. Songs that do not meet certain criteria or that are not authorized for your device or computer are not eligible for iCloud Music Library. You will not be able to access content stored in your iCloud Music Library when your Apple Music Subscription ends, but you can download songs that were previously acquired from the iTunes Store as set forth in, and subject to the terms of, the “Automatic Delivery and Downloading Previous Purchases” paragraph of the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions. You hereby agree to use iCloud Music Library only for lawfully acquired content. Any use for illegitimate content infringes the rights of others and may subject you to civil and criminal penalties, including possible monetary damages, for copyright infringement. ......"

I sympathise with you, it's unbelievably frustrating.

I had a similar problem a few months ago with iTunes Match. I signed up for £25 a year and everything got synced in the iCloud. I then spent months sorting out all my metadata (ratings, groupings, years, etc), getting it just the way I wanted. Then it was suddenly all changed back, as if I'd never done all that categorising and labelling, because the Match/iCloud version overwrote my iTunes library on my PC!!

When I spoke to Apple Support they just told me to reinstall iTunes, which didn't fix the problem at all. Seems Apple Support staff aren't all they're cracked up to be.

I still don't know how to tell Match/iCloud: "make the iCloud version match the master iTunes library on my PC, not the other way round!"

I'm now trying Apple Music but will not switch on iCloud on my PC iTunes library until I'm 100% certain I won't lose all my careful categorising and labelling.

Wishing you the very best of luck getting your music back the way you want it - a super frustrating situation.

well, the feedback page as of time of writing doesn't allow for iOS 8.4 in its pulldown-menu... Very professional, Apple!

It's crazy that you have all these (expensive) Apple products that ought to be compatible and still you're having a frustrating time!

I think I'll cancel my Apple Music trial, stick with Spotify for streaming music and keep iTunes for my own music...

I guess I'm lucky...

My laptop was on the fritz, and iTunes wouldn't update... so I still have 12.1.

I noticed the album art change after enabling iCloud Library on my phone, like many of you. All of my songs are from ripped CDs.

Luckily, since iTunes still had my library, I was able to turn off iCloud Library on my phone, and resync from iTunes.

For me, I don't really have specific metadata, (as long as it has the correct name, artist, and album, it's fine with me) but I have really specific album art (I change every song's album artwork to a picture of the artist... don't ask why... because I have no idea why I do it)

Anyways, I'm sure (what with all the press coverage now from many different tech sites) that Apple is aware and working on a fix, because they don't want the bad PR surrounding the launch.

I would bet we have a fix in a month if not less. Definitely before October (when people stop their trial and have to decide whether to pay or not).

Just my 2 cents and experience.

After two days and many hours of tedious work, I believe I am mostly back to normal. Completely disconnected from itunes in the cloud and apple music is turned off. Started a new itunes library from zero and manually added all of my music and videos from a TM backup. Then threw away the bad itunes folder. Have no idea if this will be the end, or was the right thing to do, but at least its all clean and a fresh build. And of course, will never turn on itunes match again. Truth is I'd like to delete the copies of my music in the cloud, but you have to turn on itunes match to do that, which as I said, I'll never do.

Craziest thing is how insane the damage was -- folders albums filled with completely random songs, each misnamed and mislabeled with the wrong artwork. How does that even happen?

Thank goodness for having a backup of music folder before updating to iTunes 12.2 unless of course you prefer listening to Frank Sinatra when playing Vampire Wekend Horchata with Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon Artwork, just one examle of roughly 4081 other errors in my iTuvnes library after updating - RDIO is good enough for my streaming needs and it can scan my iTunes library to create a playlist of what's in there 😮

everyone that is having issues do you 1) use the cloud or 2) did you subscribe to Apple music?

I Am not having issues. I do not subscribe to apple music. But I do have iCloud music library enabled. I was and still am a match subscriber. It sounds to me as if it's not so much having the iCloud music library enabled but more if you have it enabled in conjunction with apple music. I could be wrong. Again total speculation but I don't use a Mac, mine is a windows machine - it seems the problem is on Mac machines but that may be incorrect on my part. The frequency of reports from Mac owners is prob down to their being more users of iTunes by Mac owners. I do think though joining Apple music is the trigger for corruption r

My main issue with this entire problem for me was Apple dumping remixes of original songs that it couldn't find on iTunes or keeping the metadata fro the remix and pasting over that with the original track .mp3 off iTunes which was soul-destroying because it takes me ages to perfect my library and find awesome remixes and songs that not everyone knows about. So I was annoyed because I wanted Apple Music to work seamlessly since I am slowly building an entire Apple eco system. So the goal was getting those remixes onto iCloud Music Library without Apple wiping them over.

I found what helps is definitely the .itl trick and backing up your music folder once that .itl trick is done. I archived mine into a .zip folder and tucked it away safe for protection. Then turning off Apple Music and iCloud Music off on all devices, Mac included. Wiping all music of iOS devices. I know, big step. But then re syncing the music onto iOS devices without Apple Music hanging around. Now your iOS devices should have your original music, pre-8.4/apple music update screwup. When that is done, turn on Apple Music and iCloud music library back on on your mac or PC. Letting that sort out and all. Then when thats settled, with resynced music on iPhone for example; go into settings and turn Apple Music and iCloud Music Library back on. When the dialog for iCloud pops up, CLICK ON MERGE. MERGE MERGE MERGE.

This will scoop everything up together regardless of whether songs are on iTunes or not. Check to see if songs are good to go with right remixes/artwork etc. If okay then repeat on other devices.

It worked for me, it should work for other people.

Steps (Organised view 😝)

1. Do the .itl backup trick first on mac / pc and that should sort out

2. turn off apple music/icloud library on all devices including mac.

3. wipe music off ios devices via Settings-usage-music-edit and then delete. All devices!

4. Re sync freshly musically emptied devices with computer again with out apple music hanging around.

5. Turn on apple music and icloud library on again on mac/pc and let that sort.

6. Go to ios devices and turn on apple music and icloud music library in settings on ios devices

7. CLICK MERGE! MERGE MERGE MERGE.

8. should be good to go, go to music app, click my library, let it load the library. Should be okay. Just have a scroll through to see if things are okay.

Personally I think Apple would have avoided these problems with metadata and wiping away remixes that aren't on iTunes and all these other troubles with the launch if they brought out iTunes 12.2 before they brought out iOS 8.4. Thinking about it in regards to the steps above if we all set up apple music and icloud library from computer rather than mobile devices it wouldn't have turned bad. I think. Thats my personal opinion. If im right let me know.

Hopefully ive been a help.