Cloud symbols next to all my iTunes now?

Question

Level 1

8 points

Cloud symbols next to all my iTunes now?

After installing an SSD hard drive and upgrading to High Sierra on my MacBook, all my tunes on iTunes have a cloud symbol next to them. I tried making a playlist there and it asks me if I want to download the tune first. I have around 5,000 tunes so do I have to click on download on each one of them?

Do I even have to download them or can I keep them on the cloud? What's the pros/cons of this? I'm not bothered about accessing them on any other device.

When I ditched my old hard drive, I copied my iTunes library onto an external drive, then copied it back to my MacBook once the new drive was installed and I thought everything would be ok but I'm confused with these clouds.

Any advice please? Thanks.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Mar 4, 2018 12:03 PM

Reply

Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

272,725 points

Mar 4, 2018 12:29 PM in response to Themegaflump

See Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash. You're seeing the result of an empty library when you are signed into an Apple ID. You need to connect to your old library by holding down option as you launch iTunes, then browsing to the folder on the external drive.

Downloading files that are already on your computer would be a waste, as would putting them on your limited SSD which is where they would go with the default settings.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

zfJames

Level 4

2,726 points

Mar 4, 2018 12:15 PM in response to Themegaflump

You'll need to download them. It just means that they're not currently on your computer. Go to the 'Songs' tab, highlight all songs (click on the top one and press 'Shift' and then scroll to the bottom and—still holding shift—click on the last song), and left click on the list (control+click with a trackpad). Then click 'Download.' Make sure you have a Wi-Fi connection when you download your music. 🙂

Reply

Answer 3

Themegaflump Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2018 3:15 AM in response to turingtest2

I'm completely lost as I highlighted all the songs with clouds next to them and clicked download last night but only around half of them downloaded - it seems only my purchases downloaded but not the albums I added years ago from a CD.

When I held down alt while opening iTunes and selected my external drive then music, I'm getting folders showing every single album I have and if I click on open I get a message saying "An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder "music". Please choose a different folder."

I'm assuming my iPod acts as an external drive so could I transfer everything from it to my MacBook? Would that be easier? Or should I just take the whole lot down to my apple store as I'm tearing my hair out here.

Thanks 😟

Reply

Answer 4

Themegaflump Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 4, 2018 12:16 PM in response to zfJames

Great, thanks for your reply. I'll give that a try later. 😀

Reply

Cloud symbols next to all my iTunes now?

Similar questions