How do i find out what these mysterious "purchased" audio files are in my music songs list?

Question

Level 1

60 points

How do i find out what these mysterious "purchased" audio files are in my music songs list?

Hi,

it is so strange-- i never recall having purchased these songs that show up on my music songs list. (I click on the top bar's "kind" sorting option and see a bunch of "purchased AAC audio file"s).

How could they have gotten there?

How do i find out whether they are free or not-free files that i may be charged for without my awareness?

How do i set iTunes to never make any purchases for me without my explicit approval, free or not?

Please answer these questions-- I appreciate it!

Posted on Dec 3, 2015 12:38 AM

Reply

Answer 1

D.Cohen

Level 6

8,618 points

Dec 3, 2015 12:46 AM in response to coatli

iTunes can't make purchases without your approval.

The list of your purchases and free downloads is available in iTunes Account Info section. Below you will find the instructions on how to get there.

See your purchase history in the iTunes Store on a Mac or PC - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,336 points

Dec 3, 2015 1:12 AM in response to coatli

What songs are they ? If they are U2's Songs Of Innocence album then they were given free to everyone last year.

Reply

Answer 3

coatli Author

Level 1

60 points

Dec 3, 2015 1:20 AM in response to King_Penguin

Thank you Penguin! 🙂

Please if you would--

I still need to know:

How do i set iTunes to never make any purchases for me without my explicit approval, free or not?

I do not want anything given free to me without my prior approval!

It is alarming to see these things suddenly coming up when i look through my song list.

I do not want to have to investigate these things all over again each time i stumble across new items like this.

It is very time-consuming for me, and i do not want to have to go through it again.

(Even if I like U2, I personally prefer all my songs to be word-free, and of a very particular type with a certain feel, so i can simply play it all on random repeat and play indefinitely without distracting words or jarring rhythms...)

Reply

Answer 4

coatli Author

Level 1

60 points

Dec 3, 2015 1:34 AM in response to D.Cohen

"iTunes can't make purchases without your approval."...

...UNLESS they are placed there without my approval, apparently! Like U2's Songs Of Innocence album.

I would really like to avoid any purchases, free or not.

Also I thank you for your link.

i followed it, but it seems that perhaps you have to enable your iTunes parental permissions for the store in order to use it--

is this true?

Is there any way i can keep itunes purchases disabled, and yet review any of my "purchases' information?

It doesn't seem fair that i have to enable purchases (which makes me very uneasy)

just to review my own itunes info! know what i mean?

Reply

Answer 5

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,336 points

Dec 14, 2015 1:31 AM in response to coatli

The U2 album was a one-off - I assume that the response that they had to it will mean that they don't do the same again, if they do decide to (in the same way as they did for that album, which was just to add it to everyone's account) then there isn't anything that you can do to stop it.

If you've downloaded the album you can hide it from the cloud so that it doesn't show for redownloading, if you hadn't downloaded it you could have removed it from your account (the removal tool was added later due to the response about it) : Remove iTunes gift album "Songs of Innocence" from your iTunes music library and purchases - Apple Support

That should be the only thing on your account that you hadn't bought yourself (or been bought by anybody else who has access to your account and/or devices/computers).

On the Store tab in Edit > Preferences (iTunes > Preferences on a Mac) you can set your password to be required for every purchase on that computer, but that won't stop repeats of the U2 album if Apple decide to do similar again.

Reply