My songs are being deleted from my hard drive when they uploaded to the cloud

I have used iTunes for my music for as long as I can remember. I always purchase adequate hard drive space on my phones and PCs for all my music. I DO NOT WANT TO PKAY MY MUSIC FROM THE CLOUD. My commute to work has several signal dead spots. My workplace (I am a teacher) has very spotty internet service, and they are not happy about using up bandwidth to listen to music. My apartment gets horrible cell phone reception, so if I am signaless if the WiFi goes down, and it does, often. I want to listen to my music from the hard drives of my devices. Yet if try to sync up, iTunes automatically deletes the music from hard drive once it uploads to iCloud. How do I stop that?

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Jul 26, 2022 03:27 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 28, 2022 06:08 PM

My music collection is from a variety of sources, most purchased from iTunes, downloaded from my old CDs, and who knows what else. You seem to be missing my point. Streaming over the internet OFTEN does not work for me. This phenomenon is most evident when I try to watch movies purchased from the iTunes store. if the little cloud icon appears I cannot listen to the song, or view the movie when my internet signal is down. if the content was left on my hard drive when my content was synced, I would be able to listen view.


Perhaps this will help. I teach at the largest high school in Miami. If students are testing on computers, they literally turn off the internet signal to every where except the test centers, to preserve bandwidth. Which means I am no longer able to play music or a movie for my non-testing students. In my apartment I cannot get a cell signal. That's fine when my wifi is working, but if it's down iTunes is useless to me .


Again, when I sync my content, it no longer appears on my hard drive.. I can download the content again and usually restore it, but only after I have internet access again.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 28, 2022 06:08 PM in response to Ben_Z1

My music collection is from a variety of sources, most purchased from iTunes, downloaded from my old CDs, and who knows what else. You seem to be missing my point. Streaming over the internet OFTEN does not work for me. This phenomenon is most evident when I try to watch movies purchased from the iTunes store. if the little cloud icon appears I cannot listen to the song, or view the movie when my internet signal is down. if the content was left on my hard drive when my content was synced, I would be able to listen view.


Perhaps this will help. I teach at the largest high school in Miami. If students are testing on computers, they literally turn off the internet signal to every where except the test centers, to preserve bandwidth. Which means I am no longer able to play music or a movie for my non-testing students. In my apartment I cannot get a cell signal. That's fine when my wifi is working, but if it's down iTunes is useless to me .


Again, when I sync my content, it no longer appears on my hard drive.. I can download the content again and usually restore it, but only after I have internet access again.

Jul 28, 2022 04:39 PM in response to amandal80

No you obviously don't understand my problem, because the articles you suggested do not address my problem at all. I want to be able to sync my devices without having my content removed from the devices. whenever I see the little cloud icon next to content, I can no longer play that content without downloading it from the cloud. There a re many times in my life when I can't download and stream from the cloud.

Jul 28, 2022 06:20 PM in response to Wheels5775


Thanks for that clarification. Yes, once you sync your library up with Apple Music, the Apple Music version is available, and the iCloud icon means it is available in iCloud.


You will need to download the music for offline listening prior to losing the internet connection. This article mentions how: Add and download music from Apple Music - Apple Support


On your Mac or PC

  1. Open the Apple Music app or iTunes. 
  2. Find music that you want to add to your library.
  3. To add a song, click the Add button Add button. To add an album, playlist, or music video, click +Add.


If you do not wish to use this sync feature, you will need to cancel Apple Music, and erase your music library, and restore your music backup to restore all your original imported versions or re-download all your purchases.

Thanks.

Jul 27, 2022 02:18 PM in response to Wheels5775

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, Wheels5775,

If we understand your post correctly, you want to sync your music library between your Windows computer and your iPhone but you want to keep your music downloaded to your devices rather than stream your music. We’d like to help.


Follow the steps in this article to download your music so you can listen offline:


Add and download music from Apple Music - Apple Support


Let us know if that resolves this issue for you.


Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.


Jul 28, 2022 04:58 PM in response to Wheels5775

Wheels5775,


We appreciate those additional details. So that we can isolate this behavior further, are all the songs you are listening to from the Apple Music library, imported from another audio source such as CDs, purchased from the iTunes Store, or a mix of all three? Does this only happen with music from a specific source?


Also, is this setting mentioned in the article we previously shared enabled on your iPhone?

Always download music: Go to Settings > Music, then turn on Automatic Downloads.
Songs you add are automatically downloaded to iPhone.


Are you able to download music for offline listening in iTunes using the 'Download music to your computer' section here? Add and download music in iTunes on PC


If so, do you have to download music for offline listening multiple times even after you've already previously downloaded these songs?


Thanks!


This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

My songs are being deleted from my hard drive when they uploaded to the cloud

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.