I can't listen to purchased music without wifi

“First, connect to wifi.” Yeah, that does a lot of good on a plane or train without an Internet connection. And whenever I do this at home, while connected to wi-fi, before leaving for my trip, it is excruciatingly and painstakingly slow to have to re-download every song one by one. This has happened to me three times on the same phone. Several iOS/iTunes updates have made me do this over and over again. If iCloud auto-saves all my documents (which I don’t need on a phone) and photos to all my iDevices and Macs for instant offline access, why can’t it do that for my music library (especially those songs ripped from CD or downloaded from sources other than iTunes)? And why can’t I delete some photos on one device without permanently deleting them from all my Apple devices? Gee thanks, iCloud. Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

And that “Music without Wifi” link is in such broken English (badly and literally translated?) that it is difficult to read; moreover, all its suggestions require downloading other programs (which requires wi-fi or cellular data) and choosing songs from those programs and platforms. I don’t want to listen offline to stuff from Spotify or iHeartRadio—I want to listen to my music, for which I have already paid and previously downloaded to that device. Once downloaded, it should stay downloaded!

I truly resent having to subscribe to Apple Music.

I am unable to listen to my purchased music without wifi as well. When I I tapped on the three dot icon, there was no "make available offline" choice... only "Play Next, Add to Up Next, Add to a Playlist, Delete and Cancel"... this is inordinately FRUSTRATING as I never had this problem on ANY of my devices before purchasing this iPhone 6. Please rectify this dilemma because I have invested a great amount in purchases from iTunes! Thank you, Karen

Yo,

I had the same problem and I've found a solution. Make sure that you're connected to Wi-Fi (just for this part) on the device that you want your music on, and press the three-dot symbol. When the options such as "Play Next", "Add to Up Next" etc appear look above them and there should be some other options in red symbols. One of them will be the download from cloud option (it looks like a cloud with a downwards facing arrow coming from it). Press that and you'll start downloading the song onto your device. Once that's completed you won't need Wi-Fi to listen to it.

This is how I've managed to get my music on my iPod touch (using my phone as a personal hotspot) and listen to it without Wi-Fi.

You'll be able to tell that you can listen to a song without Wi-Fi by looking next to the three dot symbol, and there should be a wee picture of an iPhone/iPod with a tick on it. This means that the song's on your device and that you won't be streaming it when you're connected to Wi-Fi.

If you've got a huge library of music that's not showing or whatever, then this might get pretty tedious and you should have a crack at asn1983's solution; I don't see why that wouldn't work.

Hope this helps.

FIrst, connect to wifi, and go into your iTunes app. On the bottom of the screen you will see 3 dots for "more". You will see a list of Music, TV Shows etc. Select Music, then select purchased. more info: Music without Wifi

Can someone please help me then? how come Apple hasnt come out with an explanation helping people this is so frustrating! How come my phone doesn't even give me the option to make available off line???? Not that I want to go through my hundreds of songs one by one anyways. I'm so angry what was the point of this! What should I try?

In every song or playlist on Apple Music there is a three dot symbol which give you options like "Play next" or "Add to playlist" etc. There is one option that says "Make available offline". Just press that for every song, or you can also do an entire playlist's worth too and it will download the songs so you can listen to it without wifi.

Hi! I have found a solution!

FIrst, connect to wifi, and go into your iTunes app. On the bottom of the screen you will see 3 dots for "more". You will see a list of Music, TV Shows etc. Select Music, then select purchased. You will see all your music appear. On the top of the list you can select "Recent Purchases". Once you select that it will take you to the list of all the music you have purchases either on or off your phone. At the top right corner, select "Download All". Immediately your phone will start downloading each track to your phone. This will take a while so do its when you have a lot of time to kill while connected to wifi. This will enable your phone to download all your tracks at once without having to do it manually, one by one. Hope this helps, it worked for me after I got my new phone and transferred everything on my iCloud from my old phone. None of my music would play unless connected to wifi, so I did this!

Hi,

Here is the solution. Store your music in local drive and then disconnect from Wifi (both computer and you iPhone). connect your phone with computer and click on "Music", uncheck "sync music " and remove all your songs from iPhone. Once done then "sync Music" again.

/AJ

SO I start trying this idea of hitting the 3 dots and download music offline. Now that's a joke. I don't have enough lifetime to download each and every song or album. Was that suppose to be a joke?

SIlverlis,

Thank you so much for your response and help. My problem... besides the annoyance of the time involved was the amount of wifi usage it was going to take to transfer it to my phone... even though I have purchased almost all my music with my phone. I just went to my sister's and used her unlimited wifi. I do not, however, understand why music is not automatically installed on my iPhone or iPad like it used to be before purchasing this iPhone 6. The problem may not even have to do with my phone, but perhaps an update? The same thing occurred with films I have purchased! It is kind of maddening, and I believe Apple should provide an explanation, AND more importantly, RECTIFY the situation, so future purchases do not fall prey to the same problem. I do not use a computer any longer, so the suggestion from above would not work for me.

Smiles,

Karen

I Found this thread after a Google search because I was having the same problem. I think it started after updating to iOS 9.

After looking for the 3 dot thing I found you can click on the playlist "Purchased" and then the little cloud icon and redownload all my purchased music. It is like 380 songs between my wife and I so I'm pretty annoyed. it has been running for a long while and still not half way done. And that is on FIOS high speed.

What is going on Apple? I work in a county with no cell service and listen to my music during my hour each way commute. This better not happen again.

Worked like a charm! Depending on how much music you have it may take a while. I had about 300 songs with this problem. Now I can play all songs without being connected to wifi. Thanks DREWAJW, you saved the day 🙂

This is totally unacceptable. I made a playlist and I ought to be able to download just those songs. But following the above instructions doesn't give me that option: it's all or nothing--download all 1347 songs or none of them. I am in a hotel in Paris, leaving early in the morning and want to listen to my songs in flight w/o spending an arm and a leg for spotty wi-fi. Is there a shortcut that will let me access just my chosen songs?

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You can certainly just download the songs in a playlist. Go to My Music/Playlists and then tap on the name of the playlist NOT on the three dots.

After the playlist opens you should see a little cloud icon with a downward pointing arrow to the right of the playlist icon (the little album covers). Tap that cloud icon and the songs in that playlist and ONLY in that playlist will start to download.

Now, having said that, there have been many complaints - and I have occasionally seen it myself - where not the entire playlist will download. You might have to delete the songs that were downloaded and try again, but it usually works the first time for me.

The option to download songs/albums/playlists were removed from the ellipse dropdown menu a few updates ago. What you should be looking for is a cloud icon with a downward pointing arrow to the right of the song/album/playlist title (after you tap on the album/playlist title to bring it up). That is the new download icon.