The new Music app aims to present all your music, all in one place — including the music you own!
It's not just Apple Music that's new—the whole Music app on iPhone and iPad has been given a complete redesign. And while Apple Music gives you access to the complete iTunes catalog, with or without it, the new Music app still gives you a ton of features focused around your music. That includes local music management, playlists, the Up Next queue, and even AirPlay to your Apple TV or connected speakers. Here's how to use it all!
Note: To use Apple's new Music app, you need to be running iOS 8.4 or later.
- How to add, cache, search for, and delete songs from Apple's new Music app
- How to use the mini player in Apple's new Music app
- How to use playlists in Apple's new Music app
- How to use Up Next in Apple's new Music app
- How to AirPlay from Apple's new Music app
How to add, cache, search for, and delete songs from Apple's new Music app

For some, the advent of Apple Music will mean their own personal collections will become small seas in the giant oceans of the full iTunes catalog. For others, however, who don't want streaming, Music is still the place or organize and enjoy all your iTunes—and iTunes Match music. That includes adding music, searching for it, caching it for local playback, removing it from cache, and deleting it from your library.
- How to add songs to Music
- How to browse for songs in Music
- How to search for songs in Music
- How to download songs for local playback
- How to remove downloaded songs from cache
- How to delete songs from your Music library
How to use the mini player in Apple's new Music app

The mini player lets you maintain persistent access to controls and track information throughout Apple's new Music app. Although the player itself is mini, its addition is one of the new Music app's biggest new features. It sits at the bottom of the screen and stays there as you browse tracks, check out the radio, and even connect to your favorite artists. And by being there, the mini player makes it easy to not only control what you're listening to, but escalate to the full Now Playing screen whenever and where ever the need arises. Best of all, it's simple to use—once you get the hang of it!
- How to launch the mini player
- How to switch from the mini player to Now Playing
- How to switch back to the mini player from Now Playing
- How to access the mini player menu
- Can you hide the mini player?
How to use playlists in Apple's new Music app

Playlists have always been the best way to group all the music you want to listen to together.
With Apple's new Music app, you can not only create and manage playlists, you can give them distinctive and easy to recognize thumbnails, quickly add music to them, queue them to Up Next, and a lot more.
- How to access playlists
- How to play a playlist
- How to create a new playlist
- How to add tracks to a playlist
- How to reorder tracks on a playlist
- How to remove tracks from a playlist
- How to delete a playlist
- How to create a Genius playlist
How to use Up Next in Apple's new Music app

Up Next is is like a priority intercept playlist—it lets you listen to music you're suddenly in the mood for without killing the rest of what you had lined up. In the old days, if you were in the midst of a killer mix, but one track led you to remember another not in the mix, you could either forget about it and keep going, or play the serendipitous song and kill you killer mix. Now Playing put an end to that. With Now Play, and Apple's new Music app, even if you're in the middle of playlist or album, you can quickly stack other tracks—even another playlist or album—to listen to immediately, and then seamlessly merge back right back into your playlist or album when you're done.
- How to quickly add music to Up Next from anywhere
- How to quickly play other music while preserving Up Next
- How to quickly clear Up Next from anywhere
- How to view your Up Next queue
- How to view your Up Next history
- How to add music to Up Next
- How to re-arrange what's Up Next
- How to remove a track from Up Next
- How to clear Up Next
How to AirPlay from Apple's new Music app

AirPlay lets you take whatever's on your iPhone or iPad and beam it to your Apple TV or compatible speakers. With AirPlay, the content you have in iTunes is only ever a few taps away from filling your living room, bedroom, or entire house. That includes all the songs, albums, and playlists you have in Apple's new Music app for iPhone and iPad. Best of all, you can engage AirPlay right from the Now Playing screen!
- How to turn on AirPlay from Now Playing in Music
- How to AirPlay from Control Center when you're not in the Music app
Reader comments
How to use the new Music app for iPhone and iPad: The Ultimate Guide
how do I download Apple music on ios9.2 beta?
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Don't think we're getting it today. I think it will come bundled in with next beta during regular release time (two more weeks). Makes sense seeing as this beta does support Beats 1 (listening to the live broadcast now). Guess we'll have to wait and see
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So if I already have the beats music app and account how does that work. Is the beats app still there or does it go away. Just wondering before I update if I need to get rid of the beats app or not. Little confused on that part.
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Install the Beats Music App update and then launch it. It will then ask if you want to migrate. Click the button and it moves all your stuff over.
Can you go from individual to family and how ?
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Thanks so much for the excellent write up! As someone who uses and enjoys iTunes Match, I'm still lost on if I need to subscribe to both or jut Music and not iTunes Match after the free trial is up.
Same. Until they increase how many songs can be uploaded I'm thinking I'll stick with both.
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going to 100,000 come iOS9 I believe
They are basically the same. You get 25,000 songs on both so there wouldn't be a reason to keep both.
How do I change from automatic renewal. I want to try it out first, but I don't like Apple being presumptuous I'm gonna keep it.
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You can turn it off in Manage Subscriptions. Same way you would turn off Hulu renew for example.
It's not letting me merge my iTunes Match music. Am I doing something wrong?
Odd. All of my iTunes Match music is still there with all of my play lists.
I see that Apple has, once again, taken it upon itself to change local music on my iPhone. We're now sorting artists by their first names. My album art has been replaced with the artwork of albums I don't own. If I leave the native Music app and try a third-party app like Ecoute (which still accesses the default music database), same problem. No issues before the install.
Luckily, I've been burned by this before, so I knew enough to make a backup on my home computer. Apple is welcome to sort streaming music anyway that it chooses. If it wants to give bad album art to the songs it streams to me, whatever. I just don't understand why Apple feels it has the right to change my data on my own device.
How do you access the For You and New tabs on an iPhone 5S? I only see My Music, Playlists, Radio, and Connect tabs. They show up on my iPad, though.
Anyone having problems with Family Plan? I have Family Sharing but each member ends up with the main account music preferences. This is a big problem for my teenage daughters; all of their music suggestions are "Dad songs".
I have the same problem and have searched and searched for help on this but have had no luck.
How do I comment on the connect? I don't see anything that would allow me to comment!
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Connect: where do I comment etc?
Comment songs: where do I do this? I tried to tap the
Running iPhone 5s and DAMN.. the phone lags as hell now using Apple music! Have 2 gig of RAM in iPhone 6s, for christs sake, Apple!!
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To change your Music Library sorting: Go to "My Music" and where it says Artists, change that to whatever you want.
I am so far enjoying Apple Music, the only thing is my 5s does not rotate anymore in the Music App.
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I am still getting acquainted with the the Music app and need more time with it. But have they taken away the ability to rate songs with a "Heart"? I can see a way to rate with stars. Also, I have a huge music library with things that are exclusive to Bandcamp. When I get home to my computer does Apple Music make it easy for me to add those "specific" albums to the cloud? I don't want to add my whole collection. The whole reason I couldn't use iTunes Match was that if you had more than 25,000 track, you couldn't use the service. Has that changed with Apple Music? Thanks for your time.
both will be going to 100,000 song limit IIRC with iOS9
Tap the title of the track when you are on the now playing screen. The rating will appear, and you can change the star rating with a swipe. This is not obvious at all.
Would be nice if Apple would add gestures to their music app one of these days. A lot easier to swipe from song to song instead of tapping on small buttons.
Waiting for muisic to hit OS X before I make a real judgement but so far its everything I thought it would be...unfortunately that equals a service I won't be renewing, I'm going to plug away and home it grabs me but so far:
1) the hate/like/love choices were awful, after about 8 or 9 "more artists" the button greyed out and it had shown me one artists that i 'liked'
2) the for you consists 90% of artists and genres I specifically removed and playlists of music I already own
3) the radio I was able to skip through over 200 tracks before finding something I liked :(
So far very disappointing, it doesn't feel personal at all, it feels very generic which considering they know every song I buy and listen to I hoped for MCH more :(
I can't pass the screen where I've to select 3+ favourite artists. None of those suggested interest me (or I have never heard of them before)
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Can you guys add Apple Music tracks to playlists on your phones? I can't seem to do that... they add but then disappear when you hit "Done."
The album display seems a bit odd to me. If a particular artist only has one or two albums, the first screen after clicking the artist name individual tracks contained within the one or two albums. But, if a particular artist has 3 or more albums, the first screen after clicking the artist name only shows the names of the albums. You then have to click the album name to display the tracks. This is annoying, and I would prefer that it was consistent. I looked to see if there was a setting to change this behavior, but I couldn't find it. Does anybody know if there is a setting somewhere to change this? Thanks.
i like it. i hated that change to getting just a list of songs instead of clicking artist and just getting album names. i'd prefer the latter but i'll take this as a comprimise.
I got the 6 members subscription how do I get the other people to listen to Apple music?
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Add them to your family sharing in iCloud. That means you all share a credit card by the way.
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I don't want to use my credit card and having other people use it to buy apps, games etc. Is there a way around this? Can I can use a prepaid Visa for this? Also I want my itunes card to be charged not my credit card for Apple Music, is this a possibility I know it is if you just use the one member subscription.
In the pre 8.4 music app, if you select an artist, there used to be a shuffle button that would allow you to shuffle all the songs by that artist. I don't see that button anymore. If you select an album, there is a shuffle button to shuffle all the songs in that album. Anyone know how to shuffle all the songs for an artist that are in your library?
So, if I have this right, I can stream all sorts of tunes, as long as I am on wifi. Once I go outside, I have to use cellular data or download the song(s) to my device.....hmmm.
Just download on wifi in advance. How's that different than before? You used to buy before and download on wifi.
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What happened to the Genius option?
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I'm also looking for how to use Genius. It's turned on in the settings, but I can't figure out how to access it in the new Music app. Has anyone figured how to use Genius?
Number 1 request!!! Alert me if I am adding a duplicate track to a playlist.
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Has anyone found a "Shuffle All Music" button? I cannot believe this was missed. The only way I found how to do it is to change the list to "Songs", start playing a song, then click on the shuffle icon. I feel this is very silly to get the same result as all of the competitor options have a dedicated "Shuffle all songs" type of button that is very prominent, usually at the top of the stack.
How can I remove one of the stations I created in Apple Music. I've tried to no avail in both iTunes and in the Apple iOS Music app.
Hi! How do I see total playlist time on the new updated iTunes? I use Spotify when I teach cycle and make playlists to match length of my classes. Just can't find on here.
All I want to do is put all my music to play on shuffle. This appears to be a problem. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong?
On both my iPhone & iPad, when I try to switch from Beats (yes, I'm a Beats subscriber), to Apple Music, both devices just say "error". What am I doing wrong? How do I make it work?
Thanks for the article! Netflix app, Hulu or BBC is great on iPhone. If live outside USA, you can use tools like UnoTelly to get Netflix, Hulu or BBC on your iPhone.
This update has me very frustrated!! How do I play my own music that's in my library?? It only plays one song at a time and I want it to shuffle all 487 songs like it used to. I don't want to stream the radio. I want my own songs. This is my only radio at work. HELP!!
I'm right there with you can someone tell me how to listen to my own music and shuffle all of my songs? I want all my own songs to shuffle, not one genre, not one album or artist, all songs shuffle. :-(
The new music app is complicated and messy.
I agree. Apple should have all the tracks by an artist in a list form. I have all of the Eagles albums, yet I'd prefer for the songs all to be listed alphabetically in one single thread than have to go through the extra step of having to go tap on an album then find the track.
Really not caring for this layout.
Apple has begun following the bad human factors habits for almost two years and finally destroyed the last best unique Apple interface they had left. I am very disappointed that since Steve Jobs passed the development and UI work has become remedial and rife with poor / no regard for usabilty which was their biggest strength. Just being younger and hip doesn't mean the developers are any good and understand what made Apple so amazing. Good by Apple - im going back to Open Source
Before the update, I was able to play music that I downloaded from my Mac onto my iPad via the "Shared Library" option. Is it possible to still do this with the new iTunes on my iPad because I am not seeing that button as an option.
Does the music app have gapless or seamless playback?
I have an iPhone 5 with iOS 9.3.2 and can't access my music. I would like to pick the song that I play. The music icon on the phone has a blue and pink music note on it. When I hit that I get a full screen with an Apple and the word music beside it. It has a picture of a girl in a leather jacket with headphones on. That is it I cannot open it or anything no matter what I try. Please someone help!
Thanks, Ian