Best ways to use your iCloud Music Library on Mac

This guide is a good overview of what is iCloud Music Library and how you use it. Apple itself thinks about it as all the music you have stored in iCloud — a personal repository online with tracks matching the ones from the iTunes Store and the ability to download them to up to 10 of your registered devices.

If you have the new Apple Music subscription, iCloud Music Library is already included. Same with iTunes Match, a service where you can store up to 100,000 songs from your iTunes library in iCloud.

If you're wondering, "How do I get my iTunes library into iCloud?" or simply come across a good song on Apple Music and would like to add it to your iCloud:

1. Open iTunes on your Mac 
2. Find the song you'd like to add
3. Click the More button over the song 
4. Select "Add to My Music"

If your Mac runs on macOS Catalina or Big Sur, you can add music to Library via iTunes Store in the dedicated Music app. Note that whenever we refer to iTunes, we mean Music app for those who use the latest macOS versions.

Once you have your music in iCloud, you can play it from your Mac, iPhone, or any other Apple device. But where do you find your local music or the songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store? There are two options for accessing your iCloud Music Library. First one:

There's no need to worry how to backup iTunes library to iCloud — your Mac should automatically add your music library after you upload music to iTunes. The only thing you should do is enable iCloud Music Library on your Mac if you have an Apple Music or iTunes Match account. 

Sometimes you might need to know how to turn off iCloud Music Library. For example, if you don't have a backup of your music collection, you might be worried about losing important metadata. Or you might simply not want to save songs offline from Apple Music.

By far the most frequent problem is iCloud Music Library not syncing correctly. If you've turned on the iCloud Music Library and your entire library is missing you could easily restore the whole music collection from a backup file.

In case you don't have a backup, chat with Apple Support to help you reset your iCloud Music Library. Check Apple Music Library's troubleshooting guide if you run into more issues. 

If iCloud doesn't update automatically, it's possible to manually update within iTunes as well:

1. In iTunes, click on File
2. Select Library 
3. Click Update iCloud Music Library 

True audiophiles don't just listen to iTunes on basic settings. There's a much better way that gives you precise control over the listening experience.

It's true that Apple's iTunes media downloader and backup manager can be confusing. Luckily, there's a much easier alternative available.

AnyTrans is the most reliable way to sync any information (including music) between your iPhone and Mac. It's a fast and completely customizable transfer manager that exports photos, contacts, backups, and most importantly music, completely bypassing iCloud storage restrictions. 

1. Connect your iOS device to Mac and open AnyTrans

2. Select Device Manager (the first tab on top) 

3. Choose what you want to do (sync content to media library or choose specific files you want to transfer).

For all music lovers with large collections of songs and playlists that need to be used across all devices, AnyTrans and Boom 3D are indispensable, elevating your listening experience on your Mac.

Best of all, both AnyTrans and Boom 3D are available on Setapp, a platform of more than 240 Mac and iOS apps and utilities that you can use daily to improve your flow. Now that you know how you can have total control over your music library, it's time to make as many playlists as your heart desires.