Help getting my music and movies/tv out of iCloud

[jjp007]

I had saved all of my music to iTunes formerly and downloaded to an old iMac that still works but is a dinosaur. All of my music ended up in my iCloud instead of the iMac due to space issues but now I want to get them out of the cloud and onto a hard drive without downloading them to a computer, just straight to the external hard drive. Can anyone help me. I have a 5 TB HDD on my newish mac air M1. Novice here. Thanks for any advice .

 

[Bigwaff]

but now I want to get them out of the cloud and onto a hard drive without downloading them to a computer, just straight to the external hard drive. Can anyone help me. I have a 5 TB HDD on my newish mac air M1. Novice here. Thanks for any advice .

Select the version macOS installed on your MBA M1

Change where your music files are stored on Mac

In Music on Mac, change where your content is stored on your computer, manage your files, and create folders for better organization.

support.apple.com

 

[jjp007]

I still don't see how I get all of my music out of the cloud and onto the external hard drive..... I guess I'm missing something. The link above is how to store your music on your computer. It's mostly all in the cloud. I don't want it on my computer. Thanks though.

 

[Ben J.]

The link above is how to store your music on your computer.

I think you misunderstand. "on your computer" means 'on any drive on your computer', including external drives. Just set the "store content in…" to a folder on the drive.

 

[ChrisA]

Actualy you don't have to do anything at all. If you have enough space the Mac will pull all the data down from iCloud.

 

[jjp007]

Actualy you don't have to do anything at all. If you have enough space the Mac will pull all the data down from iCloud.

I don't have enough space, hence the external HDD. 🙁

 

[JonaM]

I don't have enough space, hence the external HDD. 🙁

If you use the instructions linked above and set your music folder to be on your external hard drive your Mac will see that it has plenty of space on the external drive and start syncing the music down from the cloud to your external hard drive

 

[jjp007]

If you use the instructions linked above and set your music folder to be on your external hard drive your Mac will see that it has plenty of space on the external drive and start syncing the music down from the cloud to your external hard drive

I changed the setting and its not downloading the files from iCloud. It downloaded two songs I listened to on apple music in the car on the way home. thanks for trying to help but I'm at a loss.

 

[Ben J.]

I changed the setting and its not downloading the files from iCloud. It downloaded two songs I listened to on apple music in the car on the way home. thanks for trying to help but I'm at a loss.

See the link in Bigwaff's post #2 again. Scroll down to the 'consolidate' part.

 

[Ben J.]

The consolidation process, gathering all your files from cloud servers and collecting them in the folder you selected, is not very quick and might take some time, so maybe leave it over night.