How to Transfer Your Music Library to iCloud Music Library?

One of the most popular and amazing resources from Apple is the iCloud Music Library. It is a service that enables users to store their music collection online. To subscribe to Apple Music, you’ll be required to pay $9.99 every month. You’ll also have iCloud Music Library as part of the subscription.

Another option that you’ll have is subscribing to the iTunes Match service to store your iTunes library in iCloud for only $24.99 a year. In this article, I shall discuss the process of transferring your music library to iCloud Music Library.

How does iCloud Music Library work?

As we said earlier, iCloud Music Library is a resource that allows you to store your music collection in the online space. Some of the common reasons that will prompt you to move your music library to iCloud include upgrading to a new device, factory resetting your device, or protecting the files against loss in case your device breaks down, gets lost, or is stolen.

After subscribing, you can store a maximum of one hundred thousand songs without no additional storage costs. You can add songs to iCloud Music Library by matching your music library to songs that have been listed on the iTunes Store or uploading them directly. How does matching happen?

When you subscribe to iTunes Match service or Apple Music, Apple will scan your music library on iTunes to figure out whether the tracks you own have been listed on iTunes. To reduce upload time and space, every track on your library that is available in the iTunes Store will be matched to the catalog version.

This means that when you play the track on your device, you’ll get the iTunes version; not your original file. To match your songs quickly and accurately, Apple uses audio fingerprinting and metadata matching. The system is not perfect. This means that you might have a few issues. However, most users have reported using the service without facing any challenges.

If there are files in your music library that don’t match the catalog on iTunes, they will be uploaded in their original form to iCloud. Your file might fail to be uploaded if it is too long (more than two hours), low quality (92 kbps or under), or you aren’t allowed to play the song due to security or copyright issues.

Effective Methods to Move Music to iCloud Storage

Section 1: Adding music to iCloud Music Library from your computer

You can move music files from your Windows or Mac computer to iCloud by adding them to iCloud Music Library through iTunes. Using the iCloud Music Library feature, you can store your files in iCloud. However, it’s only available to users who have subscribed to iTunes Match or Apple Music. You can move your music files on your device to iCloud by following these simple steps:

• Open the iTunes app on your computer
• On the top-right corner, click File and select the option ‘Add File to Library
• Choose the file(s) that you want to move to iCloud
• After uploading the file(s), go through your Library and locate the file that you have uploaded. You should see a cloud icon. Click on the dots next to the icon
• Click on the option Add to iCloud Music Library from the menu
• In a few seconds, your file should upload to iCloud. Once this is done, you shouldn’t see the cloud icon next to the file. Remember, to perform this operation, you have to enable iCloud Library Music on iTunes.

Section 2: Moving music files to iCloud storage on your computer

Apart from using iCloud Music Library, you can move your music files to iCloud by directly uploading them to iCloud Drive. Here are the steps that you should follow to complete this process:

• On your Windows or Mac browser, open the iCloud Drive site and type in your Apple ID and password
• At the top left corner, click the Upload icon
• Choose the files that you want to move to iCloud
• Once this is done, your files will be uploaded to iCloud Drive in a couple of minutes

The methods that we have discussed here only apply to moving music files to iCloud on your computer. If you have an iPhone, here are a few simple steps that you should use.

Section 3: Moving music files to iCloud on your iPhone

If you have downloaded music files on your iPhone that you’d like to move to iCloud, here are a few simple steps that you should follow:

• On your iPhone, open the Files app. At the bottom left corner, tap the Browse button and choose Download
• Locate the file that you want to move to iCloud and hold it for a few seconds. A drop-down menu will appear. Select Move.
• On the new page, select iCloud Drive. At the top right side of your screen, Select Copy
• In a few minutes, your music files should be moved to iCloud.

Conclusion

These are some of the best ways that you can use to transfer your music library to iCloud Music Library using your device. As you have seen, it is not a complex procedure.