Where iTunes Stores Apple Music Downloads, What Kind of Files They Are, and How to Delete Them

I wanted to look at the files you get when you download a file to your iTunes library. I selected a downloaded file, and pressed Command-Shift-R, which, on a Mac, displays the file in the Finder; nothing happened.

If you look in your iTunes Media folder, you’ll see where the downloaded files are stored.

Apple music download folder

Look in that Apple Music folder, and you’ll find all your downloads organized by artist and album.

The files are 256 kbps VBR. protected AAC files, with .m4p extensions.

File type ID: m4af

Num Tracks: 1

Data format: 2 ch, 44100 Hz, 'paac' (0x00000000) 0 bits/channel, 0 bytes/packet, 1024 frames/packet, 0 bytes/frame
no channel layout.
estimated duration: 160.253333 sec
audio bytes: 5227718
audio packets: 6904
bit rate: 260879 bits per second

If you ever want to remove downloaded files, to free up space on your computer, right-click on a file and choose Remove Download.

Remove download

To remove a track from My Music entirely, right-click and choose Delete. You’ll see the following dialog:

Remove from apple music

Click Delete Song to delete the track from My Music, and from your computer; click Remove Download to only delete the downloaded file.