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I deleted my local music files

So I had been doing both of transferring my local music files to iTunes (on Windows) and listening to songs added from Apple Music catalog. What happened is I got a new Mac and wanted to free up some space on the Windows machine I had been using iTunes on (I now use both machines), and I decided to delete the local files. At that point I had my music files not only in the iTunes Media folder but also across other directories. I thought deleting those folders would not do anything to my library since they were all matched on cloud, but it turned out I cannot play the deleted local songs and I cannot download any of the songs in my library on either of my computers, even the songs I newly added. I find it odd that I can still download and play all those songs on my iPhone. So the question is would there be any way to restore those music with the songs from Apple Music? I never thought this would happen because I mean what is the difference between, say, adding a local music file to my library by matching it on iCloud Music Library, and adding that exact same song directly from Apple Music?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 31, 2020 5:04 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 19, 2021 6:33 AM

If iTunes thinks you have a locally stored copy of a file, but you have removed the physical file, then it will generate an error when you try to play the file. Right-click and use the remove download option. You will then be able to stream that content from the cloud, or download it to the active media folder.


tt2

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 19, 2021 6:33 AM in response to hungi49

If iTunes thinks you have a locally stored copy of a file, but you have removed the physical file, then it will generate an error when you try to play the file. Right-click and use the remove download option. You will then be able to stream that content from the cloud, or download it to the active media folder.


tt2

I deleted my local music files

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