iTunes Match Confusion - Storage Almost Full?

[orange42]

I'm a little confused. I have iTunes Match. I thought when I pressed the little cloud download button next to my songs on my iPhone that that just downloaded them to the cloud so they'd be immediately available, but now I'm realizing that it is downloading the music right to my phone and taking up space? Is that the case and why I keep getting a notification saying my storage is full? If so, how to I "undownload" this music and throw it back in the cloud? I was excited thinking that all this music would automatically play and I wouldn't have to use any data to play the music that didn't have the cloud icon next to it.



edit - I just played a random song that I have no intention of wanting on my phone, all I did was click the title to play it, and now it automatically downloaded to my phone, so I'm assuming took up more of my storage. So if this means every time I play a song it gets downloaded to my phone and takes up space, what's the point of Match?

 

[GoCubsGo]

Well you'll use data to play anything if you're streaming on 3G. If you meant you didn't think you'd have to use space, that was wrong. I didn't know that until recently myself but from what I know the cloud storage is that, storage. To listen you must download a copy to your phone basically. There's no streaming from the cloud in Match. That is the best of my knowledge. I don't know how to delete a song that was downloaded from the cloud to your iPhone.

 

[sulpfiction]

Just delete the songs by swiping to the right and hitting delete. It will just delete them from your device, but you will always be able to re-download from the cloud. Basically the same way you delete an app from your phone, but it will always be available (as long as the app remains supported in the app store) under your purchased tap.

 

[iphone1105]

to delete songs from your phone just swipe them until the delete comes up.

 

[orange42]

Well this is pretty disappointing. I've been downloading a lot of my music assuming it wasn't taking up space and now that my phone is full I need to delete songs individually? I even tried deleting them on iTunes when my phone was syncing last night and for some reason that wouldn't work either.

 

[iphone1105]

Well this is pretty disappointing. I've been downloading a lot of my music assuming it wasn't taking up space and now that my phone is full I need to delete songs individually? I even tried deleting them on iTunes when my phone was syncing last night and for some reason that wouldn't work either.

I know it sucks for you, but when you read about match and learn what it is, it's clearly not a streaming service, this has been known a while. What I suggest is making playlists, and downloading them and deleting them on the fly.

 

[orange42]

I know it sucks for you, but when you read about match and learn what it is, it's clearly not a streaming service, this has been known a while. What I suggest is making playlists, and downloading them and deleting them on the fly.

I guess that's a good idea but I paid the $25 to always have all of my music, all (most) of the time, and I know it's not like I'm going to be listening to 13,000 at once, but still. Looks like I might have to get an iPod Classic before they go extinct after all.

 

[JUiCEJamie]

Well this is pretty disappointing. I've been downloading a lot of my music assuming it wasn't taking up space and now that my phone is full I need to delete songs individually? I even tried deleting them on iTunes when my phone was syncing last night and for some reason that wouldn't work either.

I can understand how you thought it did one thing, when it clearly doesn't. But you should of fully read about iTunes Match before you purchased it. Apple has enough documentation online, and so do a lot of review websites too.

If you're on WiFi then you can 'stream' your music if you like. But, one main advantage of having iTunes Match, is the chopping and changing of music on your device when you're not at home.

Have a good read of the releases notes on the Apple website, I'm pretty sure you'll use it quite a lot! - I know I do.

 

[andy3000]

You can free up the space used by downloaded music, all at once, by going into Settings>Music then toggling iTunes Match off then back on. (Note: It'll take a few minutes before that space shows as available again.)

Playing songs will re-download them, so after a while you may have to do this again if you run out of space.

 

[Merthyrboy]

Well this is pretty disappointing. I've been downloading a lot of my music assuming it wasn't taking up space and now that my phone is full I need to delete songs individually? I even tried deleting them on iTunes when my phone was syncing last night and for some reason that wouldn't work either.

You can delete an artist from your phone and albums by swiping from left to right on their name as well. Safe some time for you.