When Apple released iTunes 12.2, they changed the way you view your purchased content that is in the cloud. As I wrote yesterday, the latest update displays this purchased content by default, and, in my case, there was a bug with iTunes which did not allow me to turn it off, until I signed out of the iTunes Store and signed back in again a few times.
In addition, other people I spoke with saw the same issue as I did, but some didn’t see any cloud purchases, and didn’t get the menu items that I discuss below. This whole thing seems a bit buggy.
But here’s the way it should work. If you’re signed into the iTunes Store, and not using iCloud Music Library, you’ll have the option to display your past purchases in your iTunes library, with cloud icons next to them so you can download those that are not physically in your library. You can do this for three of your media libraries: Music, Movies, and TV Shows.
When you’re in each of these libraries, you’ll have two menu items in the View menu: All Music, or Only Music Available Offline. If you wish to see your purchases that are in the cloud, choose All Music. If you only want to see what’s in your library, choose Only Music Available Offline.
Note that you only see these options if you are not viewing your content in Playlists view. In other words, you need to select My Music, My Movies or Unwatched, or My TV Shows or Unwatched. If you are in playlists view for any of those libraries, then the purchased content options only display in the View menu if you select the library itself – Music, Movies, or TV Shows – at the top of the sidebar.
This is all a bit of a surprise. The previous option, available through iTunes 12.1, but removed in iTunes 12, was available in the Store preferences. There was an option for Show iTunes in the Cloud Purchases. I don’t know why Apple moved this to the View menu, and made it contextual (only displaying when you’ve selected certain items). It is about viewing items, but it would make more sense in the Store menu, if it is to be banished from the preferences.
I’m not sure what you mean. I can still see “Purchased” when I go into the ITunes store within the store interface and it still seems to work fine for me. I can see the new menu options you describe above, but the “Purchased” item on the store menu is still there as well for me.
Sure, you’ll always be able to view your purchased content on the store itself, but this is in addition to that.
I’m not sure what you mean. I can still see “Purchased” when I go into the ITunes store within the store interface and it still seems to work fine for me. I can see the new menu options you describe above, but the “Purchased” item on the store menu is still there as well for me.
Sure, you’ll always be able to view your purchased content on the store itself, but this is in addition to that.
Well, I’m lost. My situation is that since iTunes 12/Apple Music came I’ve never had an iTunes preference checkbox for Show iCloud music. In this latest update I still don’t. I’ve no idea why I don’t see this checkbox as everyone else seems to have it. When Apple Music came online I did check the Show Apple Music box. It shows, though I’m not going to trial it let alone subscribe. I’m happy with Spotify, which works seamlessly with my SONOS system. This means that I never had any tracks or albums messing with my library organisation. -:))
With today’s iTunes update 12.2 still no checkbox for Show iCloud music, but my undownloaded cloud purchases did appear in my library. I don’t want to see them so I went into Songs View, clicked on the cloud icon, selected these items and deleated all 29 of them. I was informed by a banner that they’d be hidden. Great says I, as that’s what I had before and wanted anyway. They are available to me anyway via Store>Account>Hidden Items if I ever want to see or download them, which is highly unlikely.
The fact is I’ve downloaded all of my library purchases except for these 29 items and I use manually manage content to iOS device via sync by wire with my computer. I wonder if this ‘antiquated’ behaviour is why??
As for the View option you mentioned in this recent post, that’s the way it’s been for me since iTunes 12 arrived, namely, Show All or Offline Only, except now with 12.2, and having done as I’ve described above, the hidden 29 items don’t show up when I go to View>Show All.
Again, none of this concerns me as I don’t want/need what I’ve hidden/is in the Cloud. I’m just saying, as best I can, what my situation over these past weeks has been with iTunes 12 on my rMBP. Big mystery though why I’ve never had the Show iCloud checkbox! Oh, the whole iTunes thing recently is one great messy mystery for many of us. Thanks for your posts. Mark.
Kirk. Thank you for all the info you’ve been providing about iTunes 12.2.x and Apple Music. As you mentioned in a comment on another article today, you have been a guinea pig and I think many of us are very grateful! I have started the Apple Music trial but have not let iCloud Music Library anywhere near my library.
I found on updating to 12.2.2 that all my cloud purchases were in my library again as you suggested they would be (curse you Single of the Week and my religious downloading regardless of quality for several years). On going to my Music library rather than a playlist the view option was there to show “only music available offline”. Checking that cleared all the tracks from that view. However I use a number of smart playlists including one to show all tracks not yet played (so I can easily find tracks I’ve just added and not yet listened to). All those iCloud tracks were still in that playlist despite no longer being visible in my main music library view! And because the option to show “only music available offline” is not available in playlist views I was wondering how to lose them.
Seeing Mark’s post above I gave it a try and selecting those iCloud tracks in my Played 0 playlist and pressing Command+Option+Backspace I got the option to “Hide the item from my iTunes Purchases”. Voila they were gone from all my playlists.
Thanks
Well, I’m lost. My situation is that since iTunes 12/Apple Music came I’ve never had an iTunes preference checkbox for Show iCloud music. In this latest update I still don’t. I’ve no idea why I don’t see this checkbox as everyone else seems to have it. When Apple Music came online I did check the Show Apple Music box. It shows, though I’m not going to trial it let alone subscribe. I’m happy with Spotify, which works seamlessly with my SONOS system. This means that I never had any tracks or albums messing with my library organisation. -:))
With today’s iTunes update 12.2 still no checkbox for Show iCloud music, but my undownloaded cloud purchases did appear in my library. I don’t want to see them so I went into Songs View, clicked on the cloud icon, selected these items and deleated all 29 of them. I was informed by a banner that they’d be hidden. Great says I, as that’s what I had before and wanted anyway. They are available to me anyway via Store>Account>Hidden Items if I ever want to see or download them, which is highly unlikely.
The fact is I’ve downloaded all of my library purchases except for these 29 items and I use manually manage content to iOS device via sync by wire with my computer. I wonder if this ‘antiquated’ behaviour is why??
As for the View option you mentioned in this recent post, that’s the way it’s been for me since iTunes 12 arrived, namely, Show All or Offline Only, except now with 12.2, and having done as I’ve described above, the hidden 29 items don’t show up when I go to View>Show All.
Again, none of this concerns me as I don’t want/need what I’ve hidden/is in the Cloud. I’m just saying, as best I can, what my situation over these past weeks has been with iTunes 12 on my rMBP. Big mystery though why I’ve never had the Show iCloud checkbox! Oh, the whole iTunes thing recently is one great messy mystery for many of us. Thanks for your posts. Mark.
Kirk. Thank you for all the info you’ve been providing about iTunes 12.2.x and Apple Music. As you mentioned in a comment on another article today, you have been a guinea pig and I think many of us are very grateful! I have started the Apple Music trial but have not let iCloud Music Library anywhere near my library.
I found on updating to 12.2.2 that all my cloud purchases were in my library again as you suggested they would be (curse you Single of the Week and my religious downloading regardless of quality for several years). On going to my Music library rather than a playlist the view option was there to show “only music available offline”. Checking that cleared all the tracks from that view. However I use a number of smart playlists including one to show all tracks not yet played (so I can easily find tracks I’ve just added and not yet listened to). All those iCloud tracks were still in that playlist despite no longer being visible in my main music library view! And because the option to show “only music available offline” is not available in playlist views I was wondering how to lose them.
Seeing Mark’s post above I gave it a try and selecting those iCloud tracks in my Played 0 playlist and pressing Command+Option+Backspace I got the option to “Hide the item from my iTunes Purchases”. Voila they were gone from all my playlists.
Thanks
Thanks Kirk for enlightening me re the new View > Only Music Available Offline.
Only problem is, that particular menu item is not available when in a Smart Playlist, so the previously purchased songs are all showing there! What else is possible to make them disappear I wonder?
It’s not visible if you select any playlist. You need to select your Music library in the sidebar, or My Music in the navigation bar, and turn it off. That should make the clouds go away everywhere.
I have selected Music in the sidebar (at the top of the sidebar, just under “Library”) and then gone to the
View menu, selected Only Music Available Offline. Return to Playlist. Cloud items still there!
I’ve heard this from many people. Try signing out of the iTunes Store, and then sign in again. I had to do it several times.
I’ve logged out and in half a dozen times, each time I log back in (while I’m looking at that Playlist) the little cloud symbol with grey striped animation appears at the top right:
http://cl.ly/image/1t2p3P453M15
and then the cloud items appear again.
I don’t know what to say. I guess you should contact Apple. It took me several logouts to get the clouds to go away, but they did, eventually.
(This is ongoing re the songs appearing in Smart Playlists and can’t get them to disappear. There was no “REPLY” button after your last comment Kirk, so I had to start a new thread here)
Here’s what Apple told me (glad I’ve got extended AppleCare), it has worked. Basically I needed to delete all the cloud songs so they don’t appear in any of the Smart Playlists.
1) Select Music Library in the sidebar.
2) View > All Music
3) Click on the Cloud icon column to sort songs by that. (If you don’t see the cloud column heading, right click in the column headings and tick “iCloud Download” to make it appear. Sort so that your cloud tracks appear at the top.
4) Select all your cloud tracks (or just select the ones you don’t want to appear).
5) Delete!
6) Go back to your Smart Playlist, the cloud songs will have disappeared.
Hello Jonathan, Not for me to butt in here but if you look at Paragraph 2 of my comments (above), this is pretty much what I say I did to get rid of cloud tracks from my library and lists view. Cheers, Mark.
I have figured out a workaround for Smart Playlists.
Edit the playlist, and add the following rule:
Location | is | on this computer
This will remove previous purchases that are no longer on the local machine.
Thanks Kirk for enlightening me re the new View > Only Music Available Offline.
Only problem is, that particular menu item is not available when in a Smart Playlist, so the previously purchased songs are all showing there! What else is possible to make them disappear I wonder?
It’s not visible if you select any playlist. You need to select your Music library in the sidebar, or My Music in the navigation bar, and turn it off. That should make the clouds go away everywhere.
I have selected Music in the sidebar (at the top of the sidebar, just under “Library”) and then gone to the
View menu, selected Only Music Available Offline. Return to Playlist. Cloud items still there!
I’ve heard this from many people. Try signing out of the iTunes Store, and then sign in again. I had to do it several times.
I’ve logged out and in half a dozen times, each time I log back in (while I’m looking at that Playlist) the little cloud symbol with grey striped animation appears at the top right:
http://cl.ly/image/1t2p3P453M15
and then the cloud items appear again.
I don’t know what to say. I guess you should contact Apple. It took me several logouts to get the clouds to go away, but they did, eventually.
(This is ongoing re the songs appearing in Smart Playlists and can’t get them to disappear. There was no “REPLY” button after your last comment Kirk, so I had to start a new thread here)
Here’s what Apple told me (glad I’ve got extended AppleCare), it has worked. Basically I needed to delete all the cloud songs so they don’t appear in any of the Smart Playlists.
1) Select Music Library in the sidebar.
2) View > All Music
3) Click on the Cloud icon column to sort songs by that. (If you don’t see the cloud column heading, right click in the column headings and tick “iCloud Download” to make it appear. Sort so that your cloud tracks appear at the top.
4) Select all your cloud tracks (or just select the ones you don’t want to appear).
5) Delete!
6) Go back to your Smart Playlist, the cloud songs will have disappeared.
Hello Jonathan, Not for me to butt in here but if you look at Paragraph 2 of my comments (above), this is pretty much what I say I did to get rid of cloud tracks from my library and lists view. Cheers, Mark.
I have figured out a workaround for Smart Playlists.
Edit the playlist, and add the following rule:
Location | is | on this computer
This will remove previous purchases that are no longer on the local machine.
Thanks Mark.. you’re right. The missing part for me was I had to turn on the cloud tracks (I had turned them off), to be able to see them and delete them. All good now!
Thanks Mark.. you’re right. The missing part for me was I had to turn on the cloud tracks (I had turned them off), to be able to see them and delete them. All good now!
Reading your article and following the instructions I discovered 78 tracks are ‘online’ only and not stored locally. Whats the easiest way to work out which tracks (I have 4000) these are so I can download them? I only purchase music through the iTunes store. I don’t use iTunes Match or iCloud music.
Make a smart playlist with the condition Location is iCloud. Select all the tracks and download them.
Ofcourse, thank you!
Reading your article and following the instructions I discovered 78 tracks are ‘online’ only and not stored locally. Whats the easiest way to work out which tracks (I have 4000) these are so I can download them? I only purchase music through the iTunes store. I don’t use iTunes Match or iCloud music.
Make a smart playlist with the condition Location is iCloud. Select all the tracks and download them.
Ofcourse, thank you!
Have a question that seems to have stumped Apple. Based on your Apple Music and iTunes experiences, I am hoping you may insights they don’t. My fun is I see *some* purchased content but not *all*. Not hidden. Showing the All tab. Same in iTunes on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Hamiliton cast album has 46 tracks. iTunes only shows 33. Any idea?
Are you seeing only the tracks that aren’t on the devices? Have you downloaded some of them?
Have a question that seems to have stumped Apple. Based on your Apple Music and iTunes experiences, I am hoping you may insights they don’t. My fun is I see *some* purchased content but not *all*. Not hidden. Showing the All tab. Same in iTunes on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Hamiliton cast album has 46 tracks. iTunes only shows 33. Any idea?
Are you seeing only the tracks that aren’t on the devices? Have you downloaded some of them?