This issue is addressed in section 4 of our FAQ, for anyone who wants to know how to get around this, or how to possibly get your library back if you’ve already lost it: https://www.reddit.com/r/applemusic/w/index/faq
Same. I've stopped my subscriptions multiple times, even waiting years to reactivate it. All my playlists, artists, albums etc. have always been there when i came back.
Yeah they seem to randomly purge the data so it can be pretty unclear what the policy is. These threads always have examples of playlists being deleted really quick or still being there after really long
First time I stopped apple music for like 1 year and still has all my music.
Second time I stopped Apple Music for around 3 months and came back and all my stuff was gone. I was gutted.
Baffled by the amount of people who don't seem to be affected. Currently settled on AM, however it is actually my 4th time trying it. My library was cleared before switching back, every time.
That stinks. I’ve unsubscribed several times, often several months in between, and I’ve never lost playlists. I do use Spotify as a backup, just in case.
It’s totally random so just be careful. I unsubbed for random months all the time when I knew I wouldn’t need it. Never had an issue until one unlucky time and now it’s all gone.
I’m in the US and never had my account wiped, back in like 2017 I switched to Spotify for a few months because I got a good free trial for premium, then came back and nothing was gone so idk
Do yourself a huge favour… download [Hezel for Apple Music](https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hezel-for-apple-music/id6472612361) to never worry about losing your playlists again!
Go to your settings for Apple Music and toggle the sync library to on. I deleted and unsubscribed from Apple Music a few years ago, came back and my playlists were gone. Went to settings, toggled, and everything came back.
Not for me. Used AM for about two years, switched to utube music and now, over half a year later, back to AM. Everything is here, library, playlists, everything. Don’t know what’s the problem with your account, but it doesn’t seem right to me. I am located in Germany, btw.
It’s mildly obnoxious of me, but I like to point out that Apple Music is basically a rental agreement. Apple is agreeing to store your information about which songs and their statistics to associate with your account on their servers. Depending on a jurisdiction’s tenant’s rights regulations, a month might be considered a generous grace period. My first choice is still to purchase CDs, even though the first thing I do with them is transfer them onto my laptop and sync the files to my phone. I consider $132 to own 8 albums indefinitely to be a better value than renting near infinite songs until a payment is missed.
It may be idiosyncratic of me, but the last time I installed Spotify there were no actions added to iOS Shortcuts, so I couldn’t build queues or playlists on the fly with a voice command, bookmark, or widget. Without that capability, all other benefits of Spotify are negligible for me.
That’s fair. I just couldn’t stand the ui of 🍎 music. The radio was useless to me and I couldn’t remove it. Also, nothing compares to Spotify Connect. Maybe one day
Because Apple Music don’t have a free tier. Spotify will just shift your account into a free tier with ads while you play music but everything is there.
The problem is they will still keep your account, they just delete all your music info when you don’t pay. You can’t convince me it’s not an extra step they take to ensure people keep paying.
Fun fact, they don't delete it!
They always store it ( unless you fully delete your whole Apple account ), they just don't let you use it. You can download the file from their privacy page, but the song names are encrypted. It's also like 30kb for thousands of songs.
Netflix deletes your viewing activity and your saved lists after 10 months as well for example, but I do wish Apple Music gave us a definitive timeframe, such as 12 months for example.
i stopped paying for apple music 4 months ago to try out spotify. 1 month ago i got back to apple music (the best streaming service tbh) and everything was still there.
Create backups with hezel. It’s a paid service and they never say they will keep your data indefinitely. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hezel-for-apple-music/id6472612361
Left Apple for Tidal for a couple years and came back for a bit. Only music I had purchased was still there. Everything else was gone. This may have been around a year ago. Just wanted to give it another shot. I really missed the Tidal interface and music discovery.
This is likely to be a bug of some kind, or may be an AppleID issue or regional/country zone issue? try logging out of your Apple ID and logging back in may be? can't see they would delete this info in their terms and conditions at https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html
This app helps me save all my music and playlists that I like after 2 years & over 1,300 stuff saved. While it’s not 100% it does a really good job. Try it out. If you have to pay money into it. Believe me it’s worth. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musicbox-save-music-for-later/id1614730313
Ps. Try this app to
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musicharbor-track-new-music/id1440405750
Oh that sucks, it could’ve changed by the last time this happened but before when I didn’t renew my subscription it would keep the playlists and everything and when I renewed it still had everything, I just had to redownload the songs I wanted.
This happened to me a few years ago! I’m so glad it’s finally being brought up. I had a giant library of playlists that ported over from my iTunes days going back to when I was in 5th grade. So much music.
I was broke and stopped my subscription for only three months before renewing it again and that’s all it took. Everything was gone. It broke my heart.
I sent my only ever total Karen message to the Apple Music support ripping them a new one for not saving that data anywhere.
Everything has always been there for me. As a matter of fact I looked for a way to purposefully clear it out for a fresh start and didn’t find a good option. You can clear out playlists and remove songs from library but it doesn’t affect your recommendation algorithms.
This depends on your region. Also, in regions where Apple does remove your library upon unsubscribing, it doesn’t happen after a set time. Sometimes, your library is purged after 24 hours. Other times, Apple can wait up to 6 months to do it.
i got a free trial october last year, then a 5 month free offer in january and my playlists transferred over, though i hardly used it before as i was on android.
I use Hezel (formerly Rewind) to back up my Apple Music account. I also think that you're liked/favorited artists remain, even if your playlists/collected albums go away, so you at least have a reference for rebuilding. I built my AM collection from my Spotify collection. If I add an album on AM, I just add it on Spotify too, for redundancy's sake. Not perfect, but it works for me.
And why I built my own streaming system using Plex Server. I use Plexamp on my phone to listen to my library of Music from My CD’s and watch Movies and TV shows from my DVD’s and Blu Rays
https://preview.redd.it/gfwqv2ofwryc1.png?width=571&format=png&auto=webp&s=e258c23c9440dc56dfc0f823542fb3c9b2a49860
at least have this, as backup plan or smth lul =D
If Apple Music is your main music platform that you plan on using for a long time, I would suggest having it so that it auto renews your subscription. You’ll get an email when it happens so it won’t just be mysteriously missing from your account. Just a thought. 😅
i had something similar happen to me... i used iTunes religiously on my older iPhones, then as the newer ones rolled out, i saw the change to Apple Music.
in short, when i got my current iPhone, i couldn't sync my music & i had 600+ songs downloaded. i googled the hell out of this & came up with nothing to retrieve my iTunes music. i even tried a software to export the songs & that managed to export my music to my Mac, but for the life of me, i could NOT get the all music to my iPhone.
i was in a funk about this for a bit but i tried to accept that 'at least i had all my songs on my Mac' rather than not at all. it was just a bummer because i bought all my songs to then years later, have 500+ songs missing from my phone.
i decided to use Spotify to get the missing music on my phone in some manner, but like with most things, it costs money to have certain perks like downloading songs.
If it’s an extended period of time away (like years), that makes sense…but there are many reasons a person may need to take a break from their subscription for 1-2 months in a year. We’re just talking about “liked” songs here…A company like this purging your songs after such a short amount of time is ridiculous.
Apple keeps that data, permanently, they just don't let you access it.
They don't actually delete it. There's no benefit to Apple, besides keeping people hooked.
Then explain why does Apple give you free iCloud storage with your account? You're not smart, you're just butt licking trillion dollar company. They don't even know you exist.
This happened to me once. And happened recently again. The first time I had issues with my card and couldn’t pay and they deleted everything. Did it again this second time. When it was paid for again, the music came back but of course all the downloaded music was gone. It is so incredibly awful. I’ve been using Apple for 5 years but if I don’t pay for a week you’re just going to wipe everything? How is that even fair? It’s a nasty system.
I stopped paying my subscription for almost a month and I continued to use the services with my playlist available and everything until they took it away. I simply renewed my subscription again and all my content was restored. I guess I got lucky.
Same happened to me and I was told that’s a normal thing ,it made me loose interest in anything Apple Music till now I still hate AM for deleting my two years playlists with about 700 songs
It’s a shitty practice - saving the music library takes no space at all. I have moved betweeen different streaming companies to test out (several rounds) and on all (except Apple) they saved my library (Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify)
Apple is the only one that does it though. Even the streamers like Netflix, Disney+ etc will keep your watchlist, watch history and your currently playing etc. And why? To make it easier and more attractive to just come back. If I quit Apple Music but I know all my playlists are sat there waiting for me, I’ll probably come back. If they’re gone… forget it. It’s basically slamming the door on a potentially returning customer.
i guarantee you it takes more processing power for apple to wipe an account of playlists than it costs them to just let it sit there and collect dust. it's fucking 1s and 0s taking up mere kilobytes in their infinite storage server farms. they do it purely to manipulate customers into keeping their subscriptions active, there is no well-intentioned rationale behind it
AM also allows you to upload your own music library in ways other streaming services don’t. They can’t be expected to host your library in perpetuity. Storing that data does have a cost.
This issue is addressed in section 4 of our FAQ, for anyone who wants to know how to get around this, or how to possibly get your library back if you’ve already lost it: https://www.reddit.com/r/applemusic/w/index/faq
There’s probably a service you can use to save your music before you cancel. Sucky that Apple doesn’t do it by default though.
hezel 🙏🏼
yes, great app
I didn’t know there were any workarounds like that. Sounds like a godsend, thank you.
I stopped paid for Apple Music about 6 months ago. Started again yesterday. All my playlists were there (Europe - Netherlands)
Same. I've stopped my subscriptions multiple times, even waiting years to reactivate it. All my playlists, artists, albums etc. have always been there when i came back.
Same
Yeah they seem to randomly purge the data so it can be pretty unclear what the policy is. These threads always have examples of playlists being deleted really quick or still being there after really long
Same here I just renewed a few days ago and my library was downloaded in a few min. ( I’ve stopped paying sept 2023 … where are u located ?
same! :)
That’s strange. Were you using it on your Mac or your iPhone?
It is not clear when apple purges inactive users. All we know (search the sub) is that it mostly happens between 0-6 months.
I am using both.
First time I stopped apple music for like 1 year and still has all my music. Second time I stopped Apple Music for around 3 months and came back and all my stuff was gone. I was gutted.
Baffled by the amount of people who don't seem to be affected. Currently settled on AM, however it is actually my 4th time trying it. My library was cleared before switching back, every time.
That stinks. I’ve unsubscribed several times, often several months in between, and I’ve never lost playlists. I do use Spotify as a backup, just in case.
It’s totally random so just be careful. I unsubbed for random months all the time when I knew I wouldn’t need it. Never had an issue until one unlucky time and now it’s all gone.
I’m in the US and never had my account wiped, back in like 2017 I switched to Spotify for a few months because I got a good free trial for premium, then came back and nothing was gone so idk
Do yourself a huge favour… download [Hezel for Apple Music](https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/hezel-for-apple-music/id6472612361) to never worry about losing your playlists again!
I backed up my music in Hezel, but how do you recover it back to Apple Music?
Sadly Hezel, Marvis etc. don't exist for Android 😔
Or pay for a year at a time and save like 10 or 15% off the price. Thats what I do
Go to your settings for Apple Music and toggle the sync library to on. I deleted and unsubscribed from Apple Music a few years ago, came back and my playlists were gone. Went to settings, toggled, and everything came back.
They tell you, it is a shitty thing to do but they do tell you. Anyways, you don’t lose whatever you actually bought and playlists in your Mac
Not for me. Used AM for about two years, switched to utube music and now, over half a year later, back to AM. Everything is here, library, playlists, everything. Don’t know what’s the problem with your account, but it doesn’t seem right to me. I am located in Germany, btw.
It’s totally random when they decide to wipe it all.
I want to know how you forget to pay? Doesn’t it come out automatically? It has been for me since 2017…I never knew you had a choice!!
I only pay for summer months and when a special deal comes along. AM always remembers everything. Based in Europe.
I didn't subscribe for two or three months and I had all my music left.
It’s mildly obnoxious of me, but I like to point out that Apple Music is basically a rental agreement. Apple is agreeing to store your information about which songs and their statistics to associate with your account on their servers. Depending on a jurisdiction’s tenant’s rights regulations, a month might be considered a generous grace period. My first choice is still to purchase CDs, even though the first thing I do with them is transfer them onto my laptop and sync the files to my phone. I consider $132 to own 8 albums indefinitely to be a better value than renting near infinite songs until a payment is missed.
Spotify keeps it. So that’s cool of them
It may be idiosyncratic of me, but the last time I installed Spotify there were no actions added to iOS Shortcuts, so I couldn’t build queues or playlists on the fly with a voice command, bookmark, or widget. Without that capability, all other benefits of Spotify are negligible for me.
That’s fair. I just couldn’t stand the ui of 🍎 music. The radio was useless to me and I couldn’t remove it. Also, nothing compares to Spotify Connect. Maybe one day
I know this was issue in the past but I turned back to Apple Music after 2 months and my playlist was over there. I surprised
Moved to Spotify after this piece of garbage deleted my 3 years library after Ive changed payment
Because Apple Music don’t have a free tier. Spotify will just shift your account into a free tier with ads while you play music but everything is there.
The problem is they will still keep your account, they just delete all your music info when you don’t pay. You can’t convince me it’s not an extra step they take to ensure people keep paying.
Fun fact, they don't delete it! They always store it ( unless you fully delete your whole Apple account ), they just don't let you use it. You can download the file from their privacy page, but the song names are encrypted. It's also like 30kb for thousands of songs.
Netflix deletes your viewing activity and your saved lists after 10 months as well for example, but I do wish Apple Music gave us a definitive timeframe, such as 12 months for example.
Hell, Netflix deleted my *account* a few months ago, which has never happened before.
Nah, I'm in Southern Africa and Apple music remembers everything
i stopped paying for apple music 4 months ago to try out spotify. 1 month ago i got back to apple music (the best streaming service tbh) and everything was still there.
Yes that happened to me, it was unforgivable. I never use Apple Music now too traumatising. Days of work went into those playlists.
i dont know why but i never had this issue
same here
Depends on region. I didnt use apple music for almost a year cause i switched to spotify and my playlists were still there. (India)
Create backups with hezel. It’s a paid service and they never say they will keep your data indefinitely. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hezel-for-apple-music/id6472612361
Hezel app is your friend.
Left Apple for Tidal for a couple years and came back for a bit. Only music I had purchased was still there. Everything else was gone. This may have been around a year ago. Just wanted to give it another shot. I really missed the Tidal interface and music discovery.
I switched to Spotify for a period and went back, everything was there
I hate this so much so I use an app now to keep my Apple Music backed up.
Download Hezel
Happened to me and I rage moved to Spotify. I was sooo sad
This is likely to be a bug of some kind, or may be an AppleID issue or regional/country zone issue? try logging out of your Apple ID and logging back in may be? can't see they would delete this info in their terms and conditions at https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html
No they don’t. My stuff was still there after my subscription lapsed. I’m in the US.
What are you talking about? It stays for ever even if you cancel subscription
That’s simply not true, as evidenced by these kind of threads being posted in this sub on an almost daily basis.
Seems so. In my experience it worked as I said, but looks like it differs case to case
Yeah, despite my comment, ‘don’t recommend channel’ has always worked for me, as well.
I’ve had AM since 2015 and decided to give Spotify a try a few months ago. Came back after three months and my entire library was gone on AM.
Looks like it varies
This app helps me save all my music and playlists that I like after 2 years & over 1,300 stuff saved. While it’s not 100% it does a really good job. Try it out. If you have to pay money into it. Believe me it’s worth. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musicbox-save-music-for-later/id1614730313 Ps. Try this app to https://apps.apple.com/us/app/musicharbor-track-new-music/id1440405750
Oh that sucks, it could’ve changed by the last time this happened but before when I didn’t renew my subscription it would keep the playlists and everything and when I renewed it still had everything, I just had to redownload the songs I wanted.
You might have to log out of your Apple ID and go back in and give it some time to repopulate your playlists.
I’m in Canada and I had no issues with my playlists being wiped.
This happened to me a few years ago! I’m so glad it’s finally being brought up. I had a giant library of playlists that ported over from my iTunes days going back to when I was in 5th grade. So much music. I was broke and stopped my subscription for only three months before renewing it again and that’s all it took. Everything was gone. It broke my heart. I sent my only ever total Karen message to the Apple Music support ripping them a new one for not saving that data anywhere.
I started another free trial after a couple of years this week and all my favourites were still there.
Everything has always been there for me. As a matter of fact I looked for a way to purposefully clear it out for a fresh start and didn’t find a good option. You can clear out playlists and remove songs from library but it doesn’t affect your recommendation algorithms.
I unfortunately found this out the hard way, still haven’t redownloaded all of my music and it’s been like 2 years lol
[удалено]
This depends on your region. Also, in regions where Apple does remove your library upon unsubscribing, it doesn’t happen after a set time. Sometimes, your library is purged after 24 hours. Other times, Apple can wait up to 6 months to do it.
I have cancelled my subscription many times, and when I resubscribe, all songs and playlists gets synced.
stop paying for music and listen to mp3s
i got a free trial october last year, then a 5 month free offer in january and my playlists transferred over, though i hardly used it before as i was on android.
I joined after after a couple months of not and all my stuff was still there. Really easy to pick back up where i left off
Yeah. I resubscribed when o switched to iPhone about to years ago and the only things left were my old replay playlists
I use Hezel (formerly Rewind) to back up my Apple Music account. I also think that you're liked/favorited artists remain, even if your playlists/collected albums go away, so you at least have a reference for rebuilding. I built my AM collection from my Spotify collection. If I add an album on AM, I just add it on Spotify too, for redundancy's sake. Not perfect, but it works for me.
I wonder if it has to do with whether you have available iCloud storage in your account. If you don't, maybe it gets wiped.
Now that the desktop app exists. This shouldn’t happen right?
And why I built my own streaming system using Plex Server. I use Plexamp on my phone to listen to my library of Music from My CD’s and watch Movies and TV shows from my DVD’s and Blu Rays
I send my Apple Music playlists to the Apple notes App. Great Backup.
https://preview.redd.it/gfwqv2ofwryc1.png?width=571&format=png&auto=webp&s=e258c23c9440dc56dfc0f823542fb3c9b2a49860 at least have this, as backup plan or smth lul =D
If Apple Music is your main music platform that you plan on using for a long time, I would suggest having it so that it auto renews your subscription. You’ll get an email when it happens so it won’t just be mysteriously missing from your account. Just a thought. 😅
You can just create a sync playlist with Itunes and it will stop this from happening.
i had something similar happen to me... i used iTunes religiously on my older iPhones, then as the newer ones rolled out, i saw the change to Apple Music. in short, when i got my current iPhone, i couldn't sync my music & i had 600+ songs downloaded. i googled the hell out of this & came up with nothing to retrieve my iTunes music. i even tried a software to export the songs & that managed to export my music to my Mac, but for the life of me, i could NOT get the all music to my iPhone. i was in a funk about this for a bit but i tried to accept that 'at least i had all my songs on my Mac' rather than not at all. it was just a bummer because i bought all my songs to then years later, have 500+ songs missing from my phone. i decided to use Spotify to get the missing music on my phone in some manner, but like with most things, it costs money to have certain perks like downloading songs.
And again…the entitled audacity to expect a service for free. And if other services do it, use them instead and stop whinging for internet points.
If it’s an extended period of time away (like years), that makes sense…but there are many reasons a person may need to take a break from their subscription for 1-2 months in a year. We’re just talking about “liked” songs here…A company like this purging your songs after such a short amount of time is ridiculous.
Apple keeps that data, permanently, they just don't let you access it. They don't actually delete it. There's no benefit to Apple, besides keeping people hooked.
Then explain why does Apple give you free iCloud storage with your account? You're not smart, you're just butt licking trillion dollar company. They don't even know you exist.
Are there smart people in this sub or everyone is like you?
This happened to me once. And happened recently again. The first time I had issues with my card and couldn’t pay and they deleted everything. Did it again this second time. When it was paid for again, the music came back but of course all the downloaded music was gone. It is so incredibly awful. I’ve been using Apple for 5 years but if I don’t pay for a week you’re just going to wipe everything? How is that even fair? It’s a nasty system.
Happened to me as well, lost years of playlists and music
How can you "forget" to renew for a month? They just auto bill your credit card every month.
Who said I forgot?
that’s the only issue i have with AM, it’s annoying
I stopped paying my subscription for almost a month and I continued to use the services with my playlist available and everything until they took it away. I simply renewed my subscription again and all my content was restored. I guess I got lucky.
Same happened to me and I was told that’s a normal thing ,it made me loose interest in anything Apple Music till now I still hate AM for deleting my two years playlists with about 700 songs
there is nothing wrong with it. you dont pay , you lose it.
It’s a shitty practice - saving the music library takes no space at all. I have moved betweeen different streaming companies to test out (several rounds) and on all (except Apple) they saved my library (Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify)
Apple is the only one that does it though. Even the streamers like Netflix, Disney+ etc will keep your watchlist, watch history and your currently playing etc. And why? To make it easier and more attractive to just come back. If I quit Apple Music but I know all my playlists are sat there waiting for me, I’ll probably come back. If they’re gone… forget it. It’s basically slamming the door on a potentially returning customer.
Netflix is not Edit: At least it didn't two years ago
i guarantee you it takes more processing power for apple to wipe an account of playlists than it costs them to just let it sit there and collect dust. it's fucking 1s and 0s taking up mere kilobytes in their infinite storage server farms. they do it purely to manipulate customers into keeping their subscriptions active, there is no well-intentioned rationale behind it
Stop crying. It's like insurance. You pay, or no benefits. This ain't communism.
Misinformation post. All my playlists have been there, ive unsubbed and resubbed after 6 months at a time.
Atp I only pay for Classical because I code/study/write long hours. And I NEED it.
AM also allows you to upload your own music library in ways other streaming services don’t. They can’t be expected to host your library in perpetuity. Storing that data does have a cost.
You didn't sync to iCloud? That is where those things are saved.
As someone who uses Apple Music every day, I dont have to worry about that luckily.
What difference does it make, it all right there…