Apple Music | Force (Re-)Matching Uploaded Songs

A few years back I copied some of my fathers CD's to an iTunes Library. Today, this library is integrated into my Apple Music account.


Recently, I have noticed that many old songs have not been matched to their Apple Music equivalents. As the Apple Music versions tend to have better audio quality, as well as lyrics, I would very much like to have these songs matched, preferably automatically, but manually / semi-assisted would also be an option for me.


I've read online that sometimes Apple Music has some trouble matching songs if the metadata is very imprecise/missing.


Now, let's take for example Bad by Michael Jackson (Bad). In Apple Music, the Cloud Status reports "Uploaded", i.e. it could not be matched. But all the metadata is correct (besides a different album cover and no lyrics in my uploaded song):



Thus, it should be matched.


As I uploaded these songs some years ago, I suspect that the song matcher back then was not as advanced as it is today. So, I would like to force the rematching of those songs (there is no option in the Music App).


I have done some further investigating: Take Beat It by Michael Jackson (Thriller). This is also one of my uploaded songs that have not been matched to an Apple Music equivalent.

Now, when I search for the Apple Music Version (Music > Search) and add it to a playlist, the playlist then contains my uploaded song instead of the Apple Music Version. So, in this way the matching was successful (although I wanted to add the Apple Music Version).

Also, if I right-click on my uploaded Song and click "Show in iTunes-Store", it also opens up the correct album (a few days ago it would show up the Xscape Album by Michael Jackson).

So, in both ways, the matching seems correct, but it isn't really matching the songs.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.5

Posted on Aug 21, 2023 02:03 AM

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Posted on Aug 21, 2023 03:53 AM

Hi,

thanks for the quick reply!


The only copy of the "original" songs I have is in my Apple Music Library. So would I have to download those songs onto my Macbook first?


Additionally, wouldn't removing songs from the library (i.e. deleting the original) remove the songs from my playlists? As I have over one thousand songs that are not matching, I wouldn't want to manually add them back into their respective playlists.


Thank you for your assistance,

Til

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 21, 2023 03:53 AM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

Hi,

thanks for the quick reply!


The only copy of the "original" songs I have is in my Apple Music Library. So would I have to download those songs onto my Macbook first?


Additionally, wouldn't removing songs from the library (i.e. deleting the original) remove the songs from my playlists? As I have over one thousand songs that are not matching, I wouldn't want to manually add them back into their respective playlists.


Thank you for your assistance,

Til

Nov 27, 2023 06:07 AM in response to TilMohr

So maybe not directly going to answer your question but you mention about 'forcing' the Apple Match service. I have learned that, assuming you are running iTunes in Windows and that is showing that you have the actual music file on your pc, then if you right click and 'delete the download' and then once deleted (you will see a blue cloud symbolising it is only held in the cloud) then right click again and press 'download'.


If there is a higher resolution version of your song held in the cloud/apple music it will download that version i.e. if your file was a 128kbps mp3 and there is a 'match' in the store it will download a 256kbps aac file in place. If there is not a match then it will only download the file that you uploaded.


I have now done this on thousands of tracks. You can choose multiple files by holding down the 'shift' key and right clicking those selected files and follow the same route. I have all my songs backed up on hard drive as well so you might want to do this just to be 100% certain.

Aug 21, 2023 03:05 AM in response to TilMohr

Hi,

Apple users sound fingerprinting to determine whether a song can be matched or not. Metadata is not used. I personally have had many song matched with incomplete or missing metadata.


I have had some success in matching tracks which were previously uploaded. I have achieved this by trial and error.


Methods used:


  1. Deleting original, the reimporting,
  2. import new copy from original source.
  3. Convert original from MP3 to AAC or vice versa.


Some tracks will simply not match - error in original copy or remastered version is now available


Jim

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Apple Music | Force (Re-)Matching Uploaded Songs

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