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

Can you delete songs from your iCloud library? I thought once you disable it from iPhone it wipes out his library...

I'm basically doing this:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/12/how-to-reset-itunes-match

I wouldn't recommend it (might not even work. I got about half way through deleting songs and now it can't connect) but I'd rather have an empty iCloud library than a destroyed one

Do we know if this issue is specific to Mac or Windows iTunes - or does it not matter. Only reason I ask is my library seemed ok earlier but I didn't inspect it in detail. I also don't want apple music (as I prefer to own a song) so this is not enabled on my machine. I wonder if signing up for apple music is triggering this.

I don't know if this works even if I don't have iTunes Match. Sure it looks a lot of trouble for just removing tag data from a server :/

When you sign up for Apple Music iCloud Library is not turned on by default. You can happily stream from Apple Music without the iCloud Library, but you won't be able to add songs entries to your local library (which was one of the selling points of Apple Music for me 😟 ) All these issues are related to the way iCloud music Library matches your local library with Apple Music tags, so for example if you have the EU version of an album and Aplpe Music only has the USA one you'll get it changed. It would've been nice to have a disclaimer of what iCloud Music Library did when asked wether I wanted to turn it on :/

Also upgrade iTunes and phone for Apple Music. Clicked box for "iCloud Music Library". As I understood it, Apple would check our music, and if it found the same track in their database, it would add that to your "cloud library". Tracks that weren't in Apple's collection/database would have to be uploaded. I have a lot of out of print classical and soundtrack CDs that I've ripped, so I figured that those would have to be uploaded. A process that would be slllooowww and take days, since I also have about 20,000 tracks in total.
When I checked on the phone, artwork was messed up in places with no patterns that I could figure. Usually, Apple would take a composer's name and slap some art that wasn't the actual LP/CD. So, I'd get John Williams' Star Wars or Schindler's List with new art from some misc album that has that theme on it. Or a Mozart or Beethoven symphony with some random art from a recording of the same symphony. Uh... no thanks.
I figured it might be temporary as everything gets uploaded... then I clicked on some tracks, and not only was the art wrong, the music was wrong. oh, it was the same composer, but the wrong music.
It's just frustrating.
Luckily, all the music and info on my iMac/external drive seemed ok.

Here's my solution. Since I have so much music, I already have a large capacity iPod with all the music on it. So, I'll keep carrying that. It's never bothered me before, so...
and I'll turn off "iCloud Music Library" sharing on the Mac. I won't have access to all my out of print music on the phone while I'm on the go, but that's ok. That's why I have an iPod. Trying for a more complete collection, can go into Apple Music and manually "add" albums that I already own to my list.
Just using Apple Music and Spotify to try things I don't already own anyway... If I find something I really like, maybe I'll buy a hard copy, and put that on my iPod that doesn't/won't sync to the cloud.

The disappointing part for me is that since Apple "owns" the iphone music app and the iTunes software and library I thought they would be able to seamlessly integrate the tracks from Apple Music with the ones already on the phone or on the iTunes local library. Instead they are doing the "substitution trick" like any other streaming service already does...

I have experienced this also, I'm in the UK with 12.2 on Windows and OSX.

They should have kept Apple Music as a separate app in iOS away from iTunes music. Within iTunes they could have sandboxed Apple Music to keep it from interfering from a users actual owned music library. I prefer Match and old school iTunes. Apple Music is just really a glorified radio station where you can decide what's played. I think this would have avoided all the problems and annoyance caused. I'm never going to be a fan of streaming/radio so I don't like the Apple Music direction. I want to own music and use match to make the rest of my owned music available for download when I please. I can only imagine what all this streaming is going to do to storage space in computers and iOS devices. iOS is not the best operating system for releasing cache at the best of times. I can envisage ballooning 'other' space.

I switched it on For Mac...and no issues so far with my iTunes library. Only issue is that I'm still getting sync issues across my iPhone, iPad and macbook when I am adding Apple music to my music

When iTunes Match first launched I got excited and immediately signed up... then it scrambled my carefully organized artwork and matched wrong versions of songs (different mixes, masterings, etc). Days of grief canceling Match and putting my iTunes library back together. Last week I heard that Match was scrambling users libraries in an even worse way - maybe a glitch as Apple was preparing Apple Music? So now Apple launches Apple Music with the new and even more messed up Match/iCloud feature. Major bummer. Why can't Apple get this right?

I would like to try Apple Music without iCloud Music Library. Can any nice people confirm that iCloud Music Library will be OFF by default on all devices? I have that fear of it immediately destroying my library before I can turn it off. I do have multiple backups of my iTunes library just in case...

Same happened here. Completely wrecked my libraries on all devices.

Shocking error from the company who delcare they love music. Really want the service but won't touch it until it is fixed.

Andy Abernathy wrote:

I would like to try Apple Music without iCloud Music Library. Can any nice people confirm that iCloud Music Library will be OFF by default on all devices?

Speaking of iOS, when you update and launch Music (the app) it asks if you want to start the free trial of Apple Music. Just deny and go in Music settings, check that iCloud music library is switched off (it should) and turn on Apple Music. Then it will ask you to subscribe to start the free trial (you have to opt-out before three months but you can do it right now). Apple Music doesn't use iCloud Music Library as long as you don't ask it to save songs to your library or save for offline use, and even then, it just asks if you want or not.

Thanks for the helpful info. I'm glad that iCloud Music Library is optional, but I wish I could just have the "offline" feature without the "iCloud Library Scrambling" feature!

Andy Abernathy wrote:

I wish I could just have the "offline" feature without the "iCloud Library Scrambling" feature!

Oh me too, it's basically the only option I need being on a quite limited 3G contract. I really hoped for a better integration between Apple Music and the local library. A guy from technical support told me that they are going to change it in a way that you can sync to iCloud without having to "match" tags to iCloud. Another guy from Apple tech support told me no way, that's not how things work 😀

I asked if they can erase my iCloud library (which I'm not using but is still there) to avoid problems in the future but they can't. As my iTunes library on Mac is correct now, I can just sync to iCloud on my phone, delete by hand all tracks so iCloud Library get depleted, and then disable it and re-sync with my Mac. Very straightforward 😀