A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match

I am SO confused. Mostly in regards to songs with no cloud symbol. Right now iTunes match is uploading unmatched songs. I'm scrolling through my library of 6,000 and like 85% of them have no cloud symbol. If I'm understanding this correctly I just paid 24.99 for 85% of my music to be ineligible? It that accurate?

A bunch with no symbol are iTunes purchases, so how can they be ineligible?

Please help me understand this!

ashley1496 said:

I am SO confused. Mostly in regards to songs with no cloud symbol. Right now iTunes match is uploading unmatched songs. I'm scrolling through my library of 6,000 and like 85% of them have no cloud symbol. If I'm understanding this correctly I just paid 24.99 for 85% of my music to be ineligible? It that accurate?

A bunch with no symbol are iTunes purchases, so how can they be ineligible?

Please help me understand this!

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No symbol means they are done being matched or uploaded. If you delete one of those tracks in iTunes (back it up first) THEN you will see a cloud, meaning you can download either your uploaded copy, or iTunes' matched 256k version if it was matched (enable "iCloud status" as a column to see which is which).

ashley1496 said:

I am SO confused. Mostly in regards to songs with no cloud symbol. Right now iTunes match is uploading unmatched songs. I'm scrolling through my library of 6,000 and like 85% of them have no cloud symbol. If I'm understanding this correctly I just paid 24.99 for 85% of my music to be ineligible? It that accurate?

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That column doesn't always have the right info until iTunes is done matching and uploading. Wait for it to finish, until it's done there's really no way to know for sure which/how many songs are matched or uploaded.

milo said:

Speaking of, there's also an "error" state and right now smart playlists don't include that as an option. Apple should add that so users can make a playlist of all "error" songs. I guess you can do it by having four criteria, each NOT the other four but it would be easier to just have that option.

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Why would you want a playlist of "error" labeled tracks? Just right click the cloud icon for the error tracks and choose "add to iCloud". Or, go to Store/update iTunes Match, which should rescan your library for any tracks labeled "error", "waiting", or "ineligible" and attempt to add them to iCloud.

Alonzo84 said:

Why would you want a playlist of "error" labeled tracks? Just right click the cloud icon for the error tracks and choose "add to iCloud". Or, go to Store/update iTunes Match, which should rescan your library for any tracks labeled "error", "waiting", or "ineligible" and attempt to add them to iCloud.

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Because I have thousands of tracks and I'd like to try adding them again (or try and figure out the problem and fix before adding). I'm already showing the two iCloud specific columns but sorting by status doesn't always work. And my library is big enough that it takes a long time to scan and more often than not fails, so I've been right clicking and selecting "add to iCloud".

Besides that, I'd like to have the option of playlists excluding error tracks as part of the rule set so that iOS devices have lists that are clean and don't include error tracks that may have the device ignore the whole list.

If apple is going to include iCloud status in the rules, they should include all possible statuses.

Wow - you bought 60,000 songs??

Ohhhhh, now I get it! You mean you STOLE 60,000 songs, and would ideally be able to steal everything from the library to read at your convenience. God point Nemaslov - that other person really is ignorant!

nemaslov said:

Ignorant statement. I have 60,000 plus songs loaded and I'll probably double that when I load in all my CDs. People who say "you'll never listen to all that..." don't understand the concept of a library. The match allows you to listen anywhere on your devices. If you are on the road you want to CHOOSE from that huge library. Obviously you won't listen to them all but you have options. Real book libraries hold many more books then you'll ever read but they give you the choice...

And streaming services don't have evberuthin the I would have in my collection.

You are missing the point. We want access to our libraries wherever we go. If they made a 1T iPod Classic there are many of us collectors who would buy one. The match service should allow us to haploid huge libraries, even if we have to pay a bit more for the service.

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ChesterM said:

Ohhhhh, now I get it! You mean you STOLE 60,000 songs, and would ideally be able to steal everything from the library to read at your convenience. God point Nemaslov - that other person really is ignorant!

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Have you ever heard of people owning lots of CDs? They were these small plastic discs that existed for many years prior to people primarily owning music in .mp3 format. Quit accusing people of questionable activity without having the basic facts.

radiogoober said:

Have you ever heard of people owning lots of CDs? They were these small plastic discs that existed for many years prior to people primarily owning music in .mp3 format. Quit accusing people of questionable activity without having the basic facts.

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ChesterM's is an understandable suspicion, since the collection that nemaslov claims to have (120,000 tracks) would likely have cost at least $10,000 if bought at today's retail prices. In an earlier post, though, nemaslov plausibly explained how his collection became so large:

"I'm in my 50s and worked in the record biz many years ago. Bought tons of LPs then CDs and received lots of promo CDs. Collecting for 30 or 40 years gives you a huge collection that many of us are now importing digitally."

nice read. i may give Match a try one day

Hi guys, I know some of the questions I am about to ask have probably been asked so many times but I couldn't find the answer to the majority (I did trawl through as many forums and threads as I could though).
So Im thinking of getting iTunes match. I have 3000 songs on my iTunes currently, with around 900 purchased from iTunes another couple of hundred from CDs and the rest are torrents etc. So the quality of maybe a 1/3 or more of my iTunes is only 128kbs. When i subscribe will the majority (that is the matched songs) be converted to 256kbs? I am confused to how this happens?

The second and main thing. My sister has iTunes on her laptop with no songs at all. If she signs in with my Apple ID can she download all 3000 songs because they will all be stored/matched in the cloud?

With regard to my iPod touch, if I have say 2000 songs and I am gone out for the day and want to download an album not on my iPod but stored in the cloud I can do that yes?

Finally once the year is over if I unsubscribe the quality remains the same for the covered tracks yes?

So sorry for asking questions most of you are probably sick of but I want to reassure myself before I get this. Thanks for reading!

Once again: iTunes Match looks at all the songs in your iTunes library.

When it sees that it is a song purchased from the iTunes store, it just remembers that it is a purchased song.

If it looks at a song and finds that it is one that is available on the iTunes store, then the song is "matched", and iTunes match remembers that.

If it looks at a song and can't find a match on the iTunes store, it uploads the song from your computer to the cloud.

So in the cloud you have now: Purchased songs, matched songs, and uploaded songs.

If you use another device (computer with iTunes, iPad, iPhone) with the same Apple ID, then all the songs in the cloud will be displayed. When you play a song, it gets downloaded. Purchased songs and matched songs are downloaded in 256 KBit AAC quality, uploaded songs are downloaded as they were on your computer.

On your original computer, you can delete matched and purchased files and then download them from the cloud. You would do that if you have music in less than 256 KBit or with DRM. Be careful: When you delete a song from your library, you will be asked if you want to move it to the trash (answer: YES) and if you want to remove it from iTunes Match (answer: NOOOOOOO unless you really absolutely want to get rid of it).

When you stop using iTunes Match, everything that is on your devices stays there unchanged, you just can't download from the cloud anymore.

iTunes Match isn't perfect. Make a backup of everything before you start it. And be patient, it takes a while. It also uploads all your artwork, so initially it will probably say "3000 items to upload". Don't worry.

Cartaphilus said:

ChesterM's is an understandable suspicion, since the collection that nemaslov claims to have (120,000 tracks) would likely have cost at least $10,000 if bought at today's retail prices. In an earlier post, though, nemaslov plausibly explained how his collection became so large:

"I'm in my 50s and worked in the record biz many years ago. Bought tons of LPs then CDs and received lots of promo CDs. Collecting for 30 or 40 years gives you a huge collection that many of us are now importing digitally."

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At a very early stage of the iTunes Store, when they had sold about 5 million songs, Apple said that _one_ person had purchased over 36,000 songs.

Thanks a million, I appreciate the response!
One thing I forgot to ask was if there is another way to move my library to my sisters laptop (I could have sworn you could do it by home sharing but don't know how).
Also if I individually convert each 128kb song to 256 AAC using iTunes is that not just the exact same quality as I would get with iTunes match?
And last question when you say download from the cloud do I actually have to fully download each track (as in will my sister have to download 3000 tracks? that would take AGES). And for me changing a lot of the songs to 256by deleting and downloading would that mean downloading each song too or does it kind of just copy over?

bobbyrae808 said:

So Im thinking of getting iTunes match. I have 3000 songs on my iTunes currently, with around 900 purchased from iTunes another couple of hundred from CDs and the rest are torrents etc. So the quality of maybe a 1/3 or more of my iTunes is only 128kbs. When i subscribe will the majority (that is the matched songs) be converted to 256kbs? I am confused to how this happens?

Click to expand...

Nothing will be converted.
If the song is matched, you would have to delete from your library and manually download the matched 256k version.
In your library, the song will be either designated "uploaded" or "matched".
The matched ones can be downloaded at the 256k.

The second and main thing. My sister has iTunes on her laptop with no songs at all. If she signs in with my Apple ID can she download all 3000 songs because they will all be stored/matched in the cloud?

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If you want to help her steal music, this will get the songs on her computer as long as you authorize it as one of your machines. She would probably needs to use your account id with her ipod also, but I am not sure.
You would be better off copying your physical music to a dvd and have her install it in her own library but I'm not sure stealing music is something they like talking about here.

With regard to my iPod touch, if I have say 2000 songs and I am gone out for the day and want to download an album not on my iPod but stored in the cloud I can do that yes?

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Yes, as long as you have wifi of course.

Finally once the year is over if I unsubscribe the quality remains the same for the covered tracks yes?

Click to expand...

Whatever is in your library at the time, is yours.
Remember the converted tracks will have your id attached to them if you are thinking about returning the favor on the torrents.

Thanks!

Files uploaded to iTunes

Hey,

I was wondering, for songs that are NOT matched and which Apple uploads to iCloud, does this mean that Apple is pretty much getting all my non-matched music for free? i.e. since my files are not in iTunes, they are uploaded. since they are uploaded, Apple has access to them. so can they now take those files and add it to iTunes and start selling those files to others???

shervinvan said:

Hey,

I was wondering, for songs that are NOT matched and which Apple uploads to iCloud, does this mean that Apple is pretty much getting all my non-matched music for free? i.e. since my files are not in iTunes, they are uploaded. since they are uploaded, Apple has access to them. so can they now take those files and add it to iTunes and start selling those files to others???

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no, they are just hosting your uploaded music on a server.....

i'm sure this has been answered, but I guess i'm still a little confused about iTunes match.

so iTunes match will enable me to take my entire library with me even if i have a 16gb iPad. It plays through the cloud via wifi or cellular data correct?

Kurri said:

i'm sure this has been answered, but I guess i'm still a little confused about iTunes match.

so iTunes match will enable me to take my entire library with me even if i have a 16gb iPad. It plays through the cloud via wifi or cellular data correct?

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You've got it, that's exactly how it works.

Tyler23 said:

You've got it, that's exactly how it works.

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Can you keep SOME of your music on the device too, without conflict, for road trips when you don't want to be using up data on the highway?

rtdunham said:

Can you keep SOME of your music on the device too, without conflict, for road trips when you don't want to be using up data on the highway?

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You can download music from the cloud to your device. So, you could, say, download an album by the Eagles and an album by Lynyrd Skynyrd to the device to listen to while driving so you will not use data. The rest of your library would still be available to you via cellular/wifi, as well.

I love iTunes Match but I hate that it is the cause of "other" space growing to be several GB on the device. This is because the music actually downloads as it plays and is stored in a cache file so that it doesn't have to download the next time it is played.

Restoring the device gets rid of the "other" space until you begin using Match again.

rtdunham said:

Can you keep SOME of your music on the device too, without conflict, for road trips when you don't want to be using up data on the highway?

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Music, yes.
Music videos, no.
At least I haven't found a way to do it.