how to recover music

Apologies for the outdated link. Try Redownload music - Apple Support instead. In particular:

Redownload music in iTunes on your PC

Before you can redownload music that you purchased from the iTunes Store, you need to authorise your PC using your Apple ID. *

1. Open iTunes. 
2. From the menu bar at the top of the iTunes window, choose Account > Purchased. If you use Family Sharing, you'll see Family Purchases instead of Purchased.
3. Choose Music from the menu in the top left-hand corner of the iTunes window.
4. Find the music that you want to redownload. If you use Family Sharing, choose a family member next to Purchased to see their purchases.
5. Click the download button  next to a song or album.

Can't see the music that you purchased?

* Each national store operates independently, so if you've switched countries you won't see your past purchases from another country.

To transfer all the content from your device into the local library, not just purchases, try Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community.

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See Transfer iTunes Store purchases to your PC - Apple Support.

See Hide and unhide music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and books - Apple Support and Redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books from the App Store, iTunes Store, and Apple Books - Apple Support.

All this works in the UK.

tt2

I live in the UK and have no issues downloading the bulk of my past purchases onto different computers or into different libraries should I choose. There are a couple of really old (2007ish) items that were originally sold on single download basis that have been removed from the store, and there are apps that I can no longer download or install even if I have the files, but for everything else it works as it is supposed to. Have you used a different Apple ID in the past?

As noted if you still have the content on a device then try Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community which should let you get at all the media, not just the purchases. It is a little dated now, and I cannot edit it, but iFunBox and a couple of scripts that I've written should give you access to the media and then let you recover playlists and stats for the low low price of free.

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Way back in the day Apple constructed a system designed to let you copy music to their devices, but not easily copy it off. This helped get the record companies onboard with digital music because it minimized the risk of people using iPods to casually share music with each other. It won't have hurt that Apple also applied DRM in the early days. Although DRM is no longer added to music Apple haven't changed the way media content is hidden on a device. When you connect an Apple device to a computer you don't get direct access to the media files. For older devices you can explore hidden files and folders can copy the randomly named files into an iTunes library in order to reconstruct them from their internal metadata. With an iPhone or iPad software like iFunBox can give you access to the raw file system of the device so you can do the same thing, or you can use commercial software to extract the media. There are options. A short term subscription to Apple Music can help to rescue non-Apple purchases from a device but that won't work for purchases that Apple might be blocking access to for reasons unknown, or come from a different Apple ID or region. The method I've suggested should give you everything.

With iPhone Apple added some additional limitations only allowing it to be manually managed from a single computer (no idea why) and if the device is synced it won't necessarily display the content, or at least it may only show it as a greyed out list of songs that cannot be played or accessed.

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You're welcome. 🙂

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Did you authorize the computer? If you don't see the cloud download symbols you might try right-clicking to see if you get a context menu.

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