I have years of CD's and other recordings including my own songs and sounds in my music library on all my Apple devices.
I have not yet got an answer from Apple as to how I can keep that old music library on my devices after joining Apple music.
How can I use both libraries on my devices without losing the old one?
iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 18
When you join Apple Music your local music is simply matched with its counterpart on Apple servers (if the tracks are available in Apple Music's catalogue). If the tracks aren't available on Apple's servers then they are uploaded.
Your original local tracks remain on your computer and are regularly played locally. You just have the convenience of accessing them when you're out of your home via the internet streaming plus the access to the other tracks available in the Apple Music's catalogue.
Thx. I too have kept separate itunes libraries on external hard drives for years but this Apple music thing looks way to automated and uncontrollable for me. I find it very humorous that the program can upload all my personal recordings and make them available to the public without paying me any royalties or drm fees. 🤣
Competition here I come.
Thx. I too have kept separate itunes libraries on external hard drives for years but this Apple music thing looks way to automated and uncontrollable for me. I find it very humorous that the program can upload all my personal recordings and make them available to the public without paying me any royalties or drm fees. 🤣
Competition here I come.
My experience was that post-sync Apple Music “preferred” the online versions of songs to my local library, which meant that the extensive metadata I’ve applied to tracks, play counts, album art, and other modifications were no longer visible. When I realized this was happening and turned the sync off I was able to restore the affected tracks from my local HDD, but I would recommend setting up a discreet profile to sync with Apple Music and not subject your main library to the vagaries of the “matching” process. It’s also not very good at updates or deletions once you’ve done the initial sync. I’m sure the Apple Stans will weigh in with all the mistakes I must have made, or that what happened is actually the preferred outcome, but I consider myself a fairly advanced local-library iTunes/Music user (61k+ library dating back to 2008) so if it was this easy for me to run into problems, it’s too easy to run into problems.
What happens to my own music library if I join Apple Music
