If you want to be able to share your Mac's tracks with all your other devices and download songs from the Apple Music catalog, you need to enable iCloud Music Library.
iCloud Music Library is Apple's cloud-based repository for all your music (and music you've saved or downloaded from Apple Music). Anyone who has an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription can take advantage of it. But before you enable iCloud Music Library, there are a few things to know.
Cloud-based matching can be buggy
Apple has been working on the iCloud Music Library concept for just over four years—the company started with a version of it called iTunes in the Cloud back when iTunes Match first launched in 2011. A lot of the bugs have been straightened out, but you may still see errors here and there if your music library is particularly complex.
What kind of errors? Stuff like:
- missing or mismatched album artwork
- live tracks matched to their studio versions
- wrong metadata
The vast majority of people's libraries shouldn't see these errors, but regardless: Before spinning up iCloud Music Library, you should make a backup of your music library. This way, in case anything goes pear-shaped, you have a place to reset.
What do I lose when I disable iCloud Music Library?
If you choose to turn off iCloud Music Library, you'll no longer have access to:
- A cloud-based copy of your Mac's iTunes library
- Your Mac's Matched or Uploaded tracks to stream on your other devices (if using Apple Music or iTunes Match)
- Any saved songs from the Apple Music catalog
Even with iCloud Music Library off, however, you'll still have access to purchased iTunes content; that's always available for streaming across your devices whether you have iCloud enabled or not.
Don't want to use iCloud Music Library but still want to jam out to Apple Music? Here's how to use Apple's subscription service without it. You can also use iCloud Music Library with a secondary iTunes Library if you want to keep your primary music collection separate, but still sync some of your tunes to your other devices.
How to enable or disable iCloud Music Library
If you want to turn iCloud Music Library on or off, here's how you go about doing that.
On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
- In the Settings app, tap Music.
- Scroll down to the iCloud Music Library setting.
- From here, you can either enable it (which then asks you to Merge or Replace the music currently on your iPhone), or disable it (which then warns you that any Apple Music tracks you've downloaded will disappear).
On your Mac
- Open iTunes.
- Go to the iTunes > Preferences menu.
- Under the General tab, check or uncheck the iCloud Music Library option.
Any other questions?
Let us know in the comments. (We've also got a bunch of iCloud Music Library troubleshooting articles available.)
Reader comments
How to enable or disable iCloud Music Library on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad
I've used iTunes Match since it came out. On both my iPhones and iPads no problem. With the release of iCloud Music Library, if I enable it all of the free storage on my devices are filled up and I get a message all filled up. Only when I enable iCloud Music Library. On my iPhone that was 6gigs that was free and my iPad 10 gigs. If I disable iCloud Music Library I get my storage back.
So that whole in the cloud stream your music doesn't work any longer for me of my music. I've emailed Apple numerous times with zero replies.
Whatever is uploading to my devices I have no idea? Album artwork? Because I do not have any music on wither device otherwise. I've wiped each device a few times and tried gain - same result. I think it is Apple's way of trying to force people to pay for Apple Music. My whole iTunes Music Library is either Apple purchased music or Matched music. Nothing uploaded.
You should change the wording of your title as its misleading, you do not need to enable iCloud Music Library/iTunes Match to listen to content on your mac on any of your devices on your own network.
Is this service only available for some countries? I cannot find the option in Greece on both iTunes or iPhone/Ipad.
I subscribe to Apple Music. I enabled the iTunes Music Library so I can store downloaded music taken from Apple Music. But I have a major issue in that if I then want to add a CD to my collection through the computer using iTunes, it won't transfer. I tried and tried for days, till I finally found the answer after an exhaustive Google search. The answer was to disable iCloud Music Library. My CDs will then transfer no problem. However now all the music I downloaded from Apple Music is gone. I have to download again. And on top of that a number of albums that I bought from the iTunes store disappear as well. I have to keep downloading them as well. This is a very annoying issue that I really hope Apple fixes. And soon.
I'm on an iMac running Yosemite 10.10.5. I followed your instructions to disable iCloud Music Library by going to iTunes Preferences and clicking on the General tab. However, contrary to your instructions, there is no place to check or uncheck the iCloud Music Library option. In fact, there is no mention of iCloud Music Library at all. What else can I try, as I don't want to use Apple Music or the iCloud Music Library at all? I just rip my music from store-bought CDs into iTunes (in uncompressed AIFF files, for best quality), compose playlists, and burn them to CD, again in uncompressed files.. I've never purchased a song from the iTunes Music Store, nor do I intend to. The only Apple device that I have is an iPod. No iPhone or iPad to transfer files to. I just want to be able to transfer my music playlists to my iPod Classic (in uncompressed files), and/or burn them to CD. I do not want to take the chance of anything getting deleted from my hard disk, so I have already disabled Apple Music and want to disable iCloud Music Library as a further precaution.. Any suggestions?
I know this may be a stupid question, what can I say? :)
Where do I have the actual iTunes library FILES stored? If I have all my music in iCloud (I do, trust me), how does iTunes on my MacBook Air laptop know (OS 10.12 Sierra)? Do the library files reside on the laptop, but point to iCloud?
Your files should be stored in your userfolder/Music/iTunes. (You can press Command-I on your keyboard to see the exact location of each file.) All your library files should stay on your Mac unless you've deleted them, but they're also linked with a file in iCloud.
Am I missing something? There is no iCloud Music Library on my iPhone or iTunes on my computer.
I currently have Apple Music that I use on my imac,iphone and ipad. I generally play music on my Sonos system. I have quite a large number of ripped cd's and don't need the Apple Music so I have cancelled that account which ends in a weeks time. I now wish to have Apple Match which will suit me better. Should I wait until Apple Music ends before signing up for Apple Match or should I do it now or doesn't it mayyer?