Apple Music and iTunes Match allow you to upload your own songs from a Mac or Windows PC to iCloud, making them available on all your devices, including your iPhone and iPad. If you want to delete such uploaded songs, you can view them all in one spot and then remove them.
How it works…
Imagine you’ve a big collection of songs on your Mac or Windows PC that you’ve curated over the years by ripping them from CDs, downloading from the Internet, and other such sources.
When you subscribe to Apple Music or to Apple’s comparatively lesser-known iTunes Match feature, your Mac or Windows PC will do one of the following for all your current songs (from CDs, Internet, etc.) that are in the macOS Music app or Windows Apple Music app:
Match: Let’s say you’ve the song ‘Buddy’ by Willie Nelson in your Music app, which you imported from an old CD. Now, Apple Music (or iTunes Match) will scan through your existing music library, and it will note that this song (Buddy by Willie Nelson) is already available in Apple’s catalogue of 100 million songs. So, this song’s file won’t be uploaded from your computer to iCloud. Instead, Apple Music will just make its own high-quality version of Buddy by Willie Nelson available on all devices where you use Apple Music.
Upload: Now, imagine you’ve a local folk song in your music library or a track you recorded yourself. Since this song is not available in Apple’s catalogue of 100 million songs, Apple Music or iTunes Match will upload this song file from your Mac or Windows PC and make it available to your other devices, including your iPhone or iPad.
Ignore (Ineligible): Some songs may not be eligible to match or upload because of a very low bit rate (less than 96 kbps), massive file size (more than 200 MB), or an excessively long playtime of more than 2 hours. These files will stay only on your Mac or PC, and won’t be available to your other devices.
Do such songs count towards your iCloud space?
Songs that are matched or uploaded don’t count towards your free 5GB iCloud space or your iCloud+ subscription space. Therefore, the only reason to delete songs from iCloud is to declutter your music library or get rid of tracks you think you’ll no longer listen to.
Delete music uploaded to your iCloud
1) Open the Music app on Mac or the Apple Music app on Windows PC and go to the Songs tab under the Library heading.
2) Right-click or Control-click anywhere on the top column row and check the option for Cloud Status.
3) Then, click the Cloud Status column name at the top to sort all songs with this parameter. It will allow you to see all your ‘Uploaded’ tracks one after the other.
4) Scroll to find all your uploaded songs. Then, right-click or Control-click over a song and choose Delete, followed by Delete Uploaded Song. This track will be removed from iCloud and subsequently from the Apple Music app on all your devices where you have Sync Library enabled. To remove multiple uploaded songs, hold the Command key on Mac or the Control key on Windows PC, then select the tracks, and delete them.
Important: Since uploaded tracks are yours and saved to your computer, the original file will still be available there. You can delete the file again from the computer’s Music app (in case it still appears in the app; search for it). Furthermore, don’t forget to delete the file from Finder on Mac or File Explorer on Windows PC to completely remove it.
Alternatively, although you can’t sort songs in the iPhone or iPad Music app by their Cloud Status, if you know which uploaded song to delete, you can do so from the iOS device, and the track will also disappear from all your other devices.
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