Before I invested in an Apple Music subscription, we could play my own, purchased music on multiple devices. Now, one of us is streaming Apple Music and I'm simply trying to listen to songs that I've purchased. I'm getting an alert to upgrade. Can I not listen to my own music while my partner streams now?
iPhone 15, iOS 18
I believe previously your music was synced to each device manually where you could play the music on each device independently. When you subscribed to Apple Music, you turned on Sync Library and that uploads all of your music on that device to Apple Music/iCloud, where it is then automatically synced on all your other devices and the music is actually streamed instead of playing locally.
Apple Music has 2 plans, an individual plan that will only allow you to stream from 1 device at a time and a Family Plan that allows up to 5 simultaneous streams. I assume this is the upgrade option you are given in the alert.
You may be able to turn off Sync Library on the devices where you want the music to play locally instead of streaming to maintain the individual plan to Apple Music. Your music will not sync to those devices that have Sync Library turned off and you will need to sync manually to those devices like you did before. Check out these 2 support articles about the difference in syncing the music:
Assuming your sharing see: What types of content can I share with my family? – Apple Support (AU)
Can't play my own purchased music when on Music subscription?
