What Happens When You Delete Apple Music
When you delete the Apple Music app from your device, your entire Apple Music library and all of your playlists created within the app will be removed. This means any songs or albums you have added to your library strictly through your Apple Music subscription will disappear when the app is deleted.
However, any music you have purchased through iTunes or directly downloaded to your device will remain. The Apple Music app is just a portal to access your subscription content, not the content itself. So removing the app does not affect music you own outright through purchases on iTunes.
In summary, downloaded and saved Apple Music content will be lost when deleting the app, but iTunes purchases will be unaffected. This is because the purchases are tied to your iCloud account rather than the Apple Music app specifically.
Your Playlists Disappear
When you uninstall the Apple Music app, any playlists that you created directly within the app will be deleted. This includes smart playlists and downloaded playlists that contain music you saved for offline listening (Source). Apple Music stores playlists separately from iTunes, so if you created playlists yourself in iTunes and not directly through the Apple Music service, those will remain intact even when you uninstall the app.
However, playlists that you added and downloaded for offline listening in Apple Music will be removed once you delete the app. So if you spent time saving songs and playlists for offline access, those will disappear. The Apple Music service essentially forgets all about any custom playlists you made while subscribed. Playlists published by Apple or other curators may also be lost.
In summary, any playlists created and saved directly within the Apple Music app itself get deleted when you remove the app from your device. But playlists made separately in iTunes will persist. So backing up your downloaded Apple Music playlists elsewhere before uninstalling is advised if you want to preserve that data (Source).
Purchased Music Remains
Any music you’ve purchased through the iTunes Store will not be deleted when you delete Apple Music, as that content lives in your iTunes library separately from the Apple Music service. Even though the Apple Music app and iTunes share some features, they maintain separate libraries. So rest assured that all your previous music purchases are safe if you decide to temporarily cancel or uninstall Apple Music.
This is confirmed by Apple’s own discussions forum where a user asked if deleting the Apple Music app would affect purchased music. An Apple moderator responded that “Deleting the App is unrelated to your purchases. You’ll keep the purchases, they will remain tied to your account, and will be accessible from iTunes on your Mac or PC.” (Source).
Your purchased music library will remain intact. You just won’t have access to it through the Apple Music app specifically until you reinstall it. But you can still access purchased songs through iTunes on desktop even while Apple Music is uninstalled.
How to Preserve Playlists
To ensure playlists are not lost when deleting Apple Music, it’s crucial to export them first. Apple provides the ability to export your Apple Music playlists before uninstalling the app. This saves a copy of the playlists that can later be imported back in.
On Mac, go to File > Library > Export Library to save playlists as XML files. On Windows, the process is the same – go to File > Library > Export Library. The exported XML file contains all playlist data that can later be imported.
According to Apple Support, when reinstalling Apple Music, go to File > Library > Import Playlist to restore playlists. This will recreate the playlists using the XML data. As long as the media files are still accessible, this will restore playlists to their previous state.
An Apple Discussions thread also recommends exporting playlists before deleting Apple Music as a way to preserve them. The XML file contains the information needed to recreate playlists when reimporting.
How to Re-download Purchased Music
The good news is that any music you’ve purchased through iTunes will remain in your purchase history even after deleting Apple Music. This means you can re-download your purchased music library after removing Apple Music.
To re-download purchases made through iTunes on an iPhone, open the App Store app and tap on your profile icon in the top right. Then go to Purchase History. Here you’ll find all your previous music, app, and other purchases. Tap the cloud icon next to any music purchase to re-download it.
On a Mac or PC, open the iTunes app and go to Account > Purchase History. You’ll see your full history of purchased songs, albums, movies and more. Find the purchased music you want to restore and click the cloud download icon to re-download.
According to Apple Support, with an Apple Music membership you can download purchases made across all your devices. Without an Apple Music subscription, you can only download on the device originally used to purchase the content [1]. So after canceling Apple Music, you may need to temporarily re-enable your subscription to re-download purchased music.
The key thing to remember is that any music purchased through iTunes will remain permanently in your history and can be downloaded again even if you delete your Apple Music account and playlists.
Reinstalling Apple Music
To reinstall Apple Music after deleting it, simply go to the App Store on your iPhone or other iOS device and search for the Apple Music app. Tap ‘Get’ to re-download and install it. You can also find it in the ‘Purchased’ section of your App Store account if you’ve downloaded it previously.
On an Android device, go to the Play Store, search for Apple Music, and tap ‘Install’ to download it again. The app is free to install on both iOS and Android.
According to discussions on the Apple forums, reinstalling the Apple Music app can sometimes resolve issues you may have been experiencing with the service. So if you deleted it to troubleshoot problems, re-downloading the app may help.
Once you’ve reinstalled Apple Music, you can sign in using your Apple ID and password to access your account again. However, there are a few things to keep in mind about playlists and downloaded music when you reinstall the app, which we’ll cover next.
Restoring Playlists
If you have deleted your Apple Music app and reinstalled it, any playlists you created will no longer be available. However, there are a few options for trying to restore your playlists:
One method is to go through your library and manually re-add any songs that were in the deleted playlists. This can be time consuming, but will reconstruct the playlists.
Another option is to sync your iPhone or iPad with iTunes on your computer. iTunes will often have a backup of your playlists from the last time you connected the device. Connect to iTunes, right-click on the device icon, and choose “Transfer Purchases” to copy over any music and playlists.[1]
As a last resort, you can restore your entire device from an iTunes or iCloud backup that contains the old playlists. Go to Settings > General > Reset and choose “Restore from Backup”. This will wipe your device and restore from the last backup, bringing back your playlists.[2]
While deleted playlists can be difficult to recover, taking the time to manually rebuild them or using backups can often get back lost Apple Music playlists.
Relinking to iTunes Purchases
One of the benefits of using Apple Music is that it will automatically relink to any music you’ve previously purchased on iTunes after you reinstall the app. This means any songs, albums, or other content you’ve bought through iTunes will be accessible again in your Apple Music library after you redownload the app.
According to Apple’s support site, Apple Music will scan your iTunes purchase history after reinstallation and match up any previously bought content with the songs in the Apple Music catalog. This matching process happens automatically in the background – you don’t have to manually locate purchases or redownload them individually.
So after deleting and reinstalling Apple Music, you can simply sign in with your Apple ID and all your past iTunes purchases will repopulate in your library after some time. This makes reaccessing purchased music quick and convenient if you ever need to reset the app.
The matching process may take a little time upon first opening the newly installed Apple Music app. But rest assured that any music bought through iTunes will eventually reappear thanks to the automatic syncing between Apple Music and your purchase history.
Losing Other Downloaded Content
When you delete the Apple Music app, it doesn’t just remove your music library and playlists. Note that any offline podcasts, videos, books etc. downloaded from Apple will be deleted as well. This includes any media content you’ve downloaded for offline listening or viewing in the Apple Podcasts, Apple TV, Apple Books, and other Apple media apps. Those apps cache their downloaded content within the Apple Music app files. So once Apple Music is deleted, those files will disappear from your device storage as well.
If you had any podcast episodes, audiobooks, TV shows, movies, books or other media saved for offline access in the respective Apple apps, those will need to be re-downloaded again after you reinstall Apple Music. You may want to consider whether you have important offline content in other Apple apps before removing Apple Music. Check each media app first and see what downloads are cached. That way you can preserve or back up anything you want to keep before the deletion happens.
Takeaways
In summary, when you delete Apple Music, your playlists and other downloaded music that is exclusively available through the streaming service will be removed from your library. However, any music you purchased through iTunes or directly downloaded will remain available on your device or in your iCloud account even after deleting Apple Music.
The key points to remember are:
- Playlists created or saved in Apple Music will be deleted.
- Music purchased through iTunes will still be accessible and can be re-downloaded.
- After reinstalling Apple Music, you can restore your playlists if you had iCloud Music Library enabled.
- Purchased iTunes music can be easily relinked to your library after reinstalling the app.
So while removing Apple Music means losing playlists and non-purchased downloads, your purchased music library will remain intact. Reinstalling Apple Music allows you to restore most of what was deleted, with the exception of any non-purchased songs that were exclusively available through the streaming service.