UPLOAD. DOWNLOAD. SYNC

How to manage your iCloud Music Library

For those with an Apple Music subscription, you can access your local music from any device if it’s logged in with your Apple ID. The iCloud Music Library will store up to 100,000 songs whether you ripped them or bought them from iTunes. However, there’s another way to get the benefits of that feature without actually paying a subscription to Apple Music. For £21.99 per year, iTunes Match can copy all your music to the cloud and if it has a higher quality version of a song it replaces your one with that one. iTunes Match is limited to 25,000 songs.

1 Check settings

When you join Apple Music or iTunes Match, the iTunes or Music app should automatically add a Sync Library option to the app’s Preferences > General section. Make sure that option is checked or your songs won’t sync.

2 Check on mobile

On iPhone, iPad and iPod touch the same setting lives in the Settings app’s Music section. Once again Sync Library should be toggled on, but you can turn it off if for whatever reason you don’t want to include this device.

3 Decide on data

On your iPhone there’s another option to think about: ‘Download over Mobile Data’. Unless you have an unlimited data plan, switch this option off when you first upload your entire library to Apple’s cloud.

4 Move between devices

We haven’t played anything on our iPhone yet, but as you can see there are already records in our Recently Played section of the Music app. That’s exactly what we want; it means the syncing is working between Mac and iPhone.

5 Make a Match

If you don’t have Apple Music you can still take advantage of iCloud Music Library, for now at least… iTunes Match is £21.99 a year and you can subscribe by going into the iTunes Store in either the iTunes or Music apps.

6 Know the code

Apple uses little status icons in the Library listings to show how your upload is doing. iTunes Match and Apple Music won’t upload duplicates of the same song; the cloud with an arrow means the song will stream but isn’t downloaded.

7 Look for errors

These are the icons to worry about: Ineligible typically means the song is too big (over 200MB), poor quality (96kbps or less) or too long (over 2 hours). You’ll need to convert the file with an external app before iCloud will accept it.

8 Watch this space

Streaming from iCloud to your Apple Watch is brilliant, because it handily solves the problem of the Watch’s limited storage space. As you can see, the Apple Watch app carries across your music ratings from your other devices.

9 Tame your tunes

The Apple Watch interface is deliberately simple, but you can still use it to add or remove tracks to and from playlists, to mark them as Loved or to tell Apple Music to suggest less songs like the current one.