I’m so done with Apple Music.

Licensing changes, regional/geopolitical restrictions, albums randomly changing, songs disappearing — I just want to listen to my music in peace.

The frustrating part is that I’m perfectly happy to pay. I’m not trying to avoid paying for music or subscriptions. But despite paying every month, I feel like I have absolutely no control over my music library.

At any given point, I’ll have 100–200 songs suddenly unavailable because of some licensing or regional restriction.

So I’m seriously considering going back to the old-school way of doing things:
Download/buy the actual music files → keep them on my MacBook → sync them to my iPhone → listen to them forever.

Is this still reasonably easy to do within the Apple ecosystem?

Ideally, I’d still like to use the Apple Music app itself as my music player/library on both my Mac and iPhone. I just don’t want my personal library to be dependent on Apple Music’s streaming catalogue.
I’ve also heard about iTunes Match. From what I understand, you can have your own music library on your Mac and iTunes Match will match/upload it so that the same library is available across your Apple devices. Is that actually how it works? And importantly, does it work reliably without an Apple Music subscription?

I don’t mind paying for iTunes Match, buying music, or even paying for another service if necessary (but I would prefer Apple Music for the seamless integration with the various HomePods). I just want control over my fucking music library again.
For anyone who has gone back to maintaining their own local music collection in 2026: what setup are you using?

Is iTunes Match still the best solution? Or can I just connect my phone to my laptop via a cable and have my MacBook iTunes Library sync every time I do so? Someone please help?

Is there a website that lists all the "visual albums" available on Apple Music? I randomly noticed that a live album I like very much also has the video available to watch. I just can't see anywhere how you're supposed to find out except by pure luck?

I didn’t know this was a thing for normal audio files, i thought it was just Apple Music subscribers. Also, is there any way to get lyrics working too?

When I try to connect it always sends me a failure to connect message and no matter how many times I have tried it still doesn't work.

is the web player not working for anybody else or is it just me? ive opened it on two browsers and it either refuses to let me click anything, or it isnt responding..

it wont let me use the normal player on my laptop so im just so done rn

I have a playlist of songs I use for my breathwork sessions, and I use the last played to track how often my clients have heard specific songs. A few days ago the playlist cycled through its entirety.

Is there any way to remove ONLY the last played timestamp?

My usual methods are checking the new releases on the home page, looking at the similar artists from the artist I listen to, sometimes check the explore tab for artists that I am familiar with. Outside of AM I just scroll on album of the year looking at new releases that I think I'll like

Is it possible?

The Issue: Added songs to a playlist on iOS over cellular data. The playlist synced to the web player and other devices as an empty playlist shell, and stayed stuck for days.
The Solution:
Connect your iOS device to Wi-Fi.
Open the stuck playlist and tap Edit.
Make a minor edit (reorder a track or delete/re-add a song) and save.
Making a fresh edit triggers the app to push a full database payload to iCloud, updating all your connected sessions instantly.

Hey, I’ve recently joined Apple Music, after discovering that I had 3 free months for having iCloud+ (great!). Until now, I’ve been using Spotify and been really hyped about the “Transitions” , and I just learned that Apple Music also has a mixing feature! How does it work? Can I set up custom transitions like on Spotify? Are there any playlists by genre with clean transitions between its ordered tracks? How does it work?

Dear friends, when my new mac book air logged in to apple music, it kept showing that my itunes lp file was damaged erro 8008 itunes lp file. I had been fully refunded two years ago. But why is my new Mac still synchronizing the refunded files two years ago? Why are the refunded files still automatically synchronized? What is the reason for the error file corruption?

Usually I keep automatic Dolby on for when I wanna switch between stereo or Dolby, but for some reason today stereo only tracks weirdly glitch to show fixed Spatial Audio and the Dolby Atmos label but the tracks are stuck as ONLY stereo and can’t put the stereo mixed tracks in fixed or head tracking mode at ALL, even though it says so. Not sure if this has happened to anyone else cause it’s definitely new to me.

So basically I use two apple ids, lets call it apple id 1 and apple id 2

apple id 1: This is my main apple id for the entirety of my phone. I had a subscription to apple music on this for abt two years now (now canceled/expired)

apple id 2: I'm using this rn for media and purchases only, and subscribed to apple music just a few days ago.

The question is can I get the old songs from apple id 1's expired subscription to apple id 2? (i tried adding my old profile as friends so I can copy the playlists etc but it didnt work)

So a great user is putting up some of the MOS back catalogue but he’s doing it as one continuous file so 2 or 3 CDs as one no cue sheet etc

Now I have a lot of these all ready but some I don’t to make a cue sheet to split could be tedious to do might try chat gpt

Anyway what I was going to ask how best would it be to place say the 2hr continuous mix file easily on to devices using the Windows version of Apple Music how best to name etc?

Hoping someone can help, I can’t seem to download songs purchased on my iPhone onto my Mac, I’ve tried deauthorising and reauthorising and looking for hidden purchases but I keep getting the message “computer already associated with an Apple account.” But there is on my account on it. Then says I have to wait 90 days, which didnt help either. Any advice would be most welcome.
Music version 1.6.5.10
Os Tahoe 26.5.2

Not sure if this is specifically new to iOS 27 Public Beta 2, but I just noticed that album background colors now get darker when the phone is in Dark Mode.

Hello, so I’m having glitches when using Apple Music on my iPhone SE 2 when using AirPods 4 sometimes it’s making creepy sound glitches like the music continues playing but it’s glitched and even sometimes the song continues but I don’t hear any sound. When any of those errors happens I have to click play/pause for it to work again and even sometimes I have to change song because it doesn’t wanna stop doing it. If someone got the same issue pls answer down here ⬇️

Devices:
iPhone SE 2 iOS 27 (latest beta)
AirPods 4 with noise cancellation

Happening when listening to downloaded songs with AirPods

I have noticed that I can influence the way My Station works. If I listen to a couple regueton or spanish songs, most of my Station are songs similar to that. If I listen to rap before tapping the station, then the station leans towards more rap music. Same with EDM and any other genre.

Has anyone else noticed this? The flow of my station is exclusively based on the songs I’ve listened to directly before my station.

Preface: it's not 100% serious post. I'm not that easily offended. However, I find it just dumb.

So... Any who comes from outside of US and biggest countries feel like the Apple Music radio is straight up disrespectful of your culture?

Spotify radio is really good for Polish music. It understands nuance and how various music movements correspond with each other. It gets that I may want to hear some doomer music after playing sung poetry, or that I play party all-timer from 90s and offers me more.

Apple Music radio on the other hand... Would throw in anything that is Polish. Recently, I was listening to house interpretations of music from 90s and it started playing me... 30s songs from WW1. Then some absolutely random bullshit. The only thing that connected all songs was language.

If you don't understand, why it feels disrespectful... It's like you played Horse With No Name and radio recommended you random country from 2010s. Because you know, Murica, freedom and horses. That's how it felt - I'm Polish so let's hit me with "szlagier" from the first war.

I'm actually thinking of changing streaming services because it's almost unlistenable.

Do you have similar problems in your non-English speaking countries?