iCloud Music Library: Everything about Apple’s online music storage

iCloud Music Library

iCloud Music Library is for storing your personal music collection online so you can access it from any device. You can stream and download songs in iCloud Music Library as long as they are free of DRM.

Jump straight to the topic you want to read more about:

• What is iCloud Music Library?
• Use iCloud Music Library with Apple Music
• Use iCloud Music Library with iTunes Match
• This is how matching and uploading your music tracks works
• iCloud Music Library sometimes makes mistakes
• Enable iCloud Music Library on iPhone and iPad
• Stream songs from iCloud Music Library over 4G
• iCloud Music Library sync again

What is iCloud Music Library?

iCloud Music Library is the name Apple uses for all the music you store in iCloud. You can use this in two ways: by subscribing to Apple Music (standard €10 per month) or by taking out iTunes Match (€25 per year).

Not all songs are uploaded to iCloud. Songs in the iTunes Store catalog or Apple Music don’t need to be saved separately for each user. All Apple needs to know is whether you have rights to play the song.

You can play the songs from iCloud Music Library on up to 10 registered devices.

Here’s what syncs when you turn on iCloud Music Library:

• Up to 100,000 songs, not including songs (or movies) purchased from the iTunes Store. Files can be up to 200 MB in size.
• Songs for which a matching song has been found in the iTunes Store (whether or not you bought it there), in iTunes Plus quality (256 kbps AAC without DRM), and other songs in their original quality.
• Music videos you’ve purchased from the iTunes Store.
• Playlists containing only music.
• Smart playlist rules, which are applied to the computer or device they are downloaded from.

Use iCloud Music Library with Apple Music

If you use Apple Music, you can also enable iCloud Music Library, but you don’t have to. How to enable iCloud Music Library:

1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Go to Music.
3. Turn on the switch at Sync Music.

You can use iCloud Music Library if you are an Apple Music member, but a combination with iTunes Match is also possible. With this combination, iTunes Music Library will check which songs from your personal music library are present in the iTunes Store catalog.

There are some differences between Apple Music and iTunes Match. iTunes Match gives you access only to iCloud Music Library and songs purchased from the iTunes Store, while Apple Music also gives you the ability to play tens of millions of songs from Apple’s catalog. Read more about the differences below:

Use iCloud Music Library with iTunes Match

If you have taken out a subscription to iTunes Match for €25 per year, you can store a maximum of 100,000 of your own songs in iCloud, without affecting your storage space at iCloud. This can therefore also be LP or concert recordings that you have digitized yourself, or downloads that you have obtained in other ways. If a match cannot be made with Apple’s own music collection, Apple will upload your specific performance of a song to iCloud. Only you can listen to it then.

This is how matching and uploading your music tracks works

If you subscribe to Apple Music or iTunes Match (or both), Apple will review your music collection in iTunes to see which songs are in the iTunes Store. These songs will not be uploaded to iCloud. This saves time and storage space. If you want to play the song on one of your devices, you will not hear your own song (in a possibly poorer quality) but a DRM-free version in 256 kbps AAC quality. Apple uses so-called audio “fingerprints” to determine exactly which version of a song you have. If the recording is as it appears on the album, Apple can simply play the default song from the album.

Apple will upload songs that are not in the iTunes catalog to iCloud in their original format. However, there are some restrictions: songs in low quality (below 92 kbps), songs that are too long (more than 2 hours), and files that are too large (more than 200 MB) will not be stored on iCloud. Also, you can’t play songs purchased with someone else’s iTunes account.

If you have an iTunes library with more than 100,000 songs, you may run into problems. In that case, you need to split your iTunes library into multiple parts of no more than 100,000 songs each.

Once uploaded, you can stream the music tracks to up to 10 devices, including 5 Mac or Windows computers.

iCloud Music Library sometimes makes mistakes

It is important that you back up your entire music collection in iTunes before enabling iCloud Music Library. Preferably backup your iTunes music to an external drive. This prevents Apple from accidentally overwriting unique numbers. It sometimes happens that Apple makes a mistake when matching songs and, for example, replaces songs with explicit lyrics with a sanitized version. It also happens that a bootleg recording is replaced by the standard record recording. You don’t want that. Therefore always make a backup of all your music.

https://www.iculture.nl/tips/backup-itunes-muziek-externe-disc/

Enable iCloud Music Library on iPhone and iPad

If you have made a good backup of your music collection, you can enable iCloud Music Library. Here’s how to do it if you’re an Apple Music member:

1. On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Music.
2. Turn on the switch at Sync Music.

If you’re an iTunes Match member, iCloud Music Library is already enabled by default. On the desktop you can see which devices you have authorized to play the music tracks via iTunes > Account > Show my account.

Stream songs from iCloud Music Library via mobile

By default, you can only stream the songs from your iCloud Music Library via WiFi, to prevent your data limit from being compromised.

You can enable or disable this:

1. Open the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad.
2. Go to Music.
3. Turn the switch next to Mobile data on or off.