AGES ago, I signed up for iTunes Match. I uploaded tons of albums. Subsequently, I signed up for Apple Music for a few years but for the last 6-7 years, I’ve been on Spotify.
I almost never go to Apple Music because I can find 95% of the stuff I want to listen to on Spotify. Once in a blue moon I’ll think about an album that won’t be on Spotify (mainly some concert albums and some samplers from places like Paste Magazine and KBCO). I’m starting to feel nostalgic about those albums.
An uneducated guess says that I probably have 30-50 albums that aren’t on Spotify.
I could simply just keep paying the $24/year for iTunes Match but I’m wondering if there is a simple solution (not a Plex server) where I assume I can download the cd’s that I ripped that I want and listen to them in an app. I actually believe I have a copy of my entire library in high quality when I first did this although I would have to track down that external drive. Apple allowed that at the time but not sure if they still do.
The other thing that I would need is that I could play the albums over on my wifi Sonos (not bluetooth).
Any ideas? I’ve got plenty of time since my iTunes Match subscription renews in Sept (and again, it’s just $24/year).
The matched files are yours to re-download from Apple, so if you can’t find the external drive I’d re-download those albums and either continue using iTunes/apple music app or use a MacOS app like Swinsian to navigate and play the albums.
If you went the Swinsian route, then it can airplay, so that should sort out the Sonos use case. If you just want old-fashioned media library management and playback without all the Apple Music extras, then it’s a good option. It is in active development, so if you end up using it get on the public beta of the new version.
I use Swinsian but I mainly use PlexAmp at home and on mobile, and it’s truly awesome, but you stated you didn’t want Plex so I will say no more .
YouTube Music is Google’s confusingly-named Spotify-like product that has nothing to do with YouTube videos. But it will let you upload all your own music for free, up to 100,000 tracks, and listen to it via their app or web, similar to iTunes Match, without paying for a subscription to the full YouTube Music library.
Thank you all. I did some more digging based on all your comments. I do like the idea of putting it in Spotify since that is what I use although it would all have to be downloaded locally (specifically my phone) although I guess I only have to download it if I want to listen to it. Although I have to confirm but I think Spotify only takes certain formats. I don’t need high quality but I would have to convert.
My next step is to see what albums I want to keep that would never be in a service. But I will download it all anyway if I can’t find my hard drive just in case.
I absolutely, 100% do not need to do this, but . So with zero money, I could upload my entire music library (well south of 100,000 tracks) of CD rips and just use Google as the hub?
…until Google announces they’re going to discontinue the service, promises that you’ll be able to export your data for up to 6 months, but doesn’t address the bugs in the exporter for the first five and a half of those six months - and accidentally purges your data after five.
I’m being slightly facetious, but I really feel like we’ve been down similar roads with Google before.
Is there a way to disable it without unsubscribeing?
A few years ago I tried to cancel it and my Music collection in Apple Music/iTunes got completely screwed up and had to immediately re-subscribe because the clean up was too daunting. I don’t recall the specifics but just remember it was a mess.
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. So with zero money, I could upload my entire music library (well south of 100,000 tracks) of CD rips and just use Google as the hub?
