iTunes: understanding "Remove Download"...

[jimthing]

Can someone explain to me how you recover tracks after doing a "Remove Download" on them?

To be specific, most of my music on my main server Mac is ALAC formatted (not iTunes downloads) and I keep copies of everything locally there. And I'm an iTunes Match (not Apple Music) subscriber for iOS device usage (so either AAC versions are created & uploaded, or they're matched to iTunes Store versions).

But AFAICT, if you accidentally do the Remove Download function on a track, then that's it, the ALAC version is completely gone with ZERO WARNING – with the only thing available being an inferior AAC download from the synced/matched cloud.

Am I right, or am I missing something?
If so, is there any way to recover your ALAC version?

(NB: I'm on iTunes 12.8.0.150 / High Sierra 10.13.6)

 

[Ritsuka]

You are not missing anything. Just keep a local backup of your alac files.

 

[jimthing]

That's a bit crazy though, isn't it – is there any way to mitigate against this behaviour?
(e.g. Set a warning message, or suchlike...)

AFAICT there's no warning message option(?), it's so easy for users to accidentally click Remove Download and their lossless/PCM version (ALAC/AIFF/WAV) is just gone forever.

You are not missing anything. Just keep a local backup of your alac files.

When you say "just keep a local backup", that's what I was trying to do by keeping all media (inc. ALAC's) on a local Mac's iTunes app, lol.
Is there some other method that's best, or is Time Machine good enough for this?

...another crazy Apple 'functionality', if you ask me. How on earth does Apple think it's a good idea to simply delete the users' high-quality local copy, without seemingly any setting to at least warn the user beforehand, is anyone's guess.

 

[Ritsuka]

Well, if you read the iTunes Match documentation, it says it uploads mp3 and aac only, you can't expect to get the alac back from it.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Do NOT consider iCloud or Apple Music services as a backup for local files. Do NOT consider one local copy of any file, a file that's also in iCloud or Apple Music services, as a backup.

 

[jimthing]

...more bloody hassle. Gee thanks Apple!

What on earth does this company think they're doing recently. Worse sw to go along with sh¡te super overly expensive hw (£4.5K!) that manages to overheat (in a British summer, FFS!) and/or a MBP with a keyboard that's been replaced twice. What a joke.