With iTunes Match on, where are music files from CDs I imported onto my Mac?

RK,

Pick one in your library and right-click, Show in Finder, and you will see where that one is. Explore from there.

(When you did that rip with iTunes years ago, each file was named as Track # - Title. So a "search for the name of an artist or album on my hard drive" will not find them.)

If you're going to download these files to your computer take a look at Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community first. iTunes Music is the old name for the media folder. Now that you're using Music this would normally be ~/Music/Music/Media where ~ is your user's home folder. You can either download the existing file from iTunes Match (right-click a selection in Music and click Download) or you can potentially download from OneDrive, then Add to Library. The local additions should merge with what is already in the cloud. Given you don't already have the files on the computer I would take the first option, with the second being a backup approach if you find any mismatches, e.g. clean vs. explicit, etc.

tt2

Hi RK,

Subscribing to iTunes Match does not cause files to vanish, but other things may have. I am guessing OneDrive is your culprit. See this:

"When you enable the OneDrive folder backup for Desktop, Documents, or Pictures, it moves your local files to OneDrive, effectively removing the original local copy .... "

Artist folders in the Music app are typically stored at ~/Music/Music/Media or ~/Music/Music/Media/Music where ~ is your user's home folder. See the section on iTunes Media Organization in Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community if Music insists on creating the third /Music folder in the path and you'd rather it didn't. Move your downloaded files into the media folder, then add that folder to the library to import them and merge with whatever you already have in the cloud. Or move them into the Automatically Add to Music folder inside the media folder for the same effect.

tt2

Yup. Removing all local copies without a serious warning seems like a drastic thing to do, but apparently that is how it works.

If you have throughly searched your computer for the music files and they have in fact vanished, at least you've got the backup copy.