Will Apple Music "Re-Match" tracks if I migrate from iTunes Match?

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Level 1

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Will Apple Music "Re-Match" tracks if I migrate from iTunes Match?

I have 26K+ music tracks in MacOS iTunes 12.7.5.9, and presently use iTunes Match across my Apple devices. I'm considering "upgrading" from iTunes Match to Apple Music. Two related questions:

If I turn Apple Music ON for the trial (and then possibly back OFF), will Apple Music/iTunes Match go back through the whole track matching process again, or use what the other service has already performed on my library?

To get beyond theory, have you actually performed that ON/OFF migration between iTunes Match and Apple Music yourself with good result and found no new changes to your metadata tagging?

Context:

I ask because my existing track metadata tagging and art has been highly curated over many years, founded on more than 80% of the tracks having been ripped into Apple Lossless from my 1400+ CD collection. Over the years, I had a number of bad experiences where iTunes Match made extensive (unacceptable) changes to my tagging, some that I could not permanently resolve once the service was ON. Each time, I ended up turning OFF iTunes Match and restoring backups. Despite Apple confirming to me that iTunes Match "may" still change my track metadata tagging, on my 3rd attempt enabling it earlier this year, iTunes Match completed the process requiring only a small amount of manual metadata clean-up, and my changes have remained in place now for several months. Life with iTunes and iTunes Match is pretty good. However, other users are still reporting occasional large-scale problems with their initial iTunes Match like what caused me to abort in the past. The exact reasons why some people have problems is beyond me or this thread, but given my past personal experience and man days backing-up, checking and restoring trying to first get to a stable iTunes Match environment, I'm paranoid considering going through the initial matching process again if I don't really have to -- especially since Apple Music for me is a luxury I don't really have a great need for. OTOH I'm hopeful I may not run into metadata problems now that Apple Music seems to be using the same underlying iTunes Match technology, and if I can gain confidence it won't cause me a lot of problems, I very likely will give it a go... Hence, my questions here.

BTW, I know I can have iTunes Match and Apple Music at the same time, or not. If I proceed with enabling Apple Music, my plan would be to keep my iTunes Match subscription ON until it expires, so I could "downgrade" out of Apple Music and just go back to iTunes Match as I have it today. I assume (perhaps I shouldn't!), that once I turn Apple Music ON, turning iTunes Match ON or OFF should not effect Apple Music and my metadata tag data.

Thanks in advance.

iMac, null

Posted on Jul 8, 2018 9:53 AM

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Answer 1

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Jimzgoldfinch

Level 7

28,207 points

Jul 8, 2018 12:31 PM in response to WDW1Fanatic

WDW1Fanatic wrote:

I have 26K+ music tracks in MacOS iTunes 12.7.5.9, and presently use iTunes Match across my Apple devices. I'm considering "upgrading" from iTunes Match to Apple Music. Two related questions:

If I turn Apple Music ON for the trial (and then possibly back OFF), will Apple Music/iTunes Match go back through the whole track matching process again, or use what the other service has already performed on my library?

To get beyond theory, have you actually performed that ON/OFF migration between iTunes Match and Apple Music yourself with good result and found no new changes to your metadata tagging?

HI,

I use both iTunes match and Apple music. Adding Apple music was seamless as iTunes match already uses the same iCloud Music library. There shouldn't be any changes to the metadata but as always as you already do, is keep a backup of your original library. The only thing that should change is that you have access Apple Music content and Apple music will be the iCloud status for that music.

I have used both services continuously since the early days of Apple Music. Apart from the odd glitch, everything has run smoothly with tracks being matched as "Matched AAC audio file". I tend to delete the original and download the matched version. I have a separate library that contains ALAC versions of most tracks.

I cannot answer what happens if you decide to unsubscribe to either iTunes Match or Apple music.

Jim

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Answer 2

WDW1Fanatic Author

Level 1

27 points

Jul 12, 2018 8:08 AM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

Just a word of thanks. After doing separate backups of iTunes and my Mac SSD last night just-in-case, I set in and turned Apple Music on today with several open hours on my calendar if I ran into unforeseen problems. The process was so painless I hate to say I went looking for issues and have not found any in my first couple hours. There was effectively no transition against my physical iTunes library, and within a few seconds my iTunes Match environment became Apple Music.

Now the exploration and learning in's-and-out's of Apple Music via iTunes, iOS, watchOS, tvOS and Siri on my HomePods begin. Thx again for a helpful reply that gave me enough confidence to proceed. It's amazing how much better suggestions already are.

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Will Apple Music "Re-Match" tracks if I migrate from iTunes Match?

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