How long is it supposed to take for iCloud Music to upload my entire iTunes library?

By musicjunky, 15 March, 2019

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Other Apple Chat

I thought I'd post in this forum since I'm using iTunes on a PC, not a Mac.

Well, I just got my Apple ID, as a head start for when I get my iPhone. I also got three free months of Apple Music, which I am loving! :) Now, I'm trying to use iCloud to upload my music library. It doesn't seem to be working, or at least it's taking a very, very long time. I started all this last night, and every time I tried to close iTunes, it prompted me that my library was still being uploaded. So I left my computer on and iTunes running while I slept. When I woke up this morning, I tried to close iTunes again and still got that message. So I turned the iCloud function off and back on again. I guess it's still uploading right now, but my question is: should this process really take so many hours? I have a really crappy Internet connection. It's broadband, but we only get 5 mbps. Could that have something to do with it? Also, I don't know exactly how many songs I have in my library, but I know it's a very large collection. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Comments

By Igna Triay on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 04:15

This depends on several things. If you have lots of songs, it could take a while, depending on the speed of your wifi

By Holger Fiallo on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 04:15

Sometimes it takes me several minutes. For 2 albums takes about2 or 4 minutes. Also depends on your Internet speed.

By Jeff on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 04:15

It could definitely take a while to upload a large music collection, especially if your upload speed is slow. Often upload speeds are significantly slower than download speeds, and if your music collection is in the multiple GB range, several hours (even a day) is not unusual.

By musicjunky on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 04:15

I thought this might be the case. I believe I have somewhere around 8 GB of music on this computer, and I don't have the greatest connection speed either.

By Roxann Pollard on Sunday, March 24, 2019 - 04:15

It's possible that some of your music may not be uploaded. If you are like me, and use lot's of audio described movies and TV shows, iTunes may not recognize all of it. The reason is that the iTunes music database was designed to recognize songs not movies or TV shows. This is not to say that they won't be recognized and uploaded but there is that possibility, due to the database limitations. I have a lot of movies and TV shows uploaded but some stuff, no matter what I do, iTunes just doesn't recognize it. Also, if you have CD's from a local band, for example, then they may not upload, either. It's really a crapshoot. When you first begin the process of uploading your music, it can take possibly many days even, depending on how much you have, what can be recognized, and of course, the bandwidth of your ISP. Be patient. It's a process. Once you think you have everything loaded up, you may wish to go back through your iTunes library and verify. The one thing I encourage you to do is to keep a complete backup of anything that you place inside the iTunes library for your protection. Preferrably, your original backup should be placed on a secondary stand-alone hard drive for those just in case the world crashes times, at least your media will be safe.

Here are a few suggestions for your new Apple Music subscription service, as well.

For example, if you hear a song and want to add it to a pre-existing playlist, say add this song to XXX playlist and it will.

If you find a new album and want to add it to your collection, say add this album to library and it will.

If you want Siri to play your XXX playlist, say play my XXX playlist and it will.

If you want to shuffle the playlist, say play XXX playlist shuffled and it will.

Siri creates a radio station for you based on the songs that you have indicated that you like, which happens when you press the like button for a song,
found under the more button.

If you want Siri to play the radio station that was created for you, say play my radio station and it will.

If the song that's playing from your personal radio station isn't something you want to hear, say play something else and it will choose something else
from your personalized station.

These are just a few of the things that I can think of where Siri really shines. I hope you love it as much as I do.

HTH

By Scut on Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - 04:15

I was getting "worried" when my library was still loading the morning after. I didn't quite remember when I started. Anyway, I have a library just shy of 8000 songs and it took nearly 24 hours to the best of my recollection. I was kind of disappointed that no one had a definitive time. I didn't know if my upload was "locked up" or anything else bad. Maybe some of you could use this as a point of reference - keeping in mind the many factors mentioned in other posts.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - 04:15

I have over 30000 songs and it takes a long time. FYI. If you get a song from apple music and you cancel your subscription, I think the song willbe deleted.

Some other things to add.

You can indeed upload songs that iTunes doesn't recognize, like local groups. I have a bunch of songs in my library that aren't available in the iTunes store or Apple Music. The difference is that you won't be able to download the higher quality AAC versions of them like you can with songs that are available in the iTunes store. This has been awesome for upgrading the quality of some of my music, especially if the original rips were poor quality. I think the reason that described movies with only the audio track won't upload is that iTunes may have a limit on how long or how big the file can be, although I could be wrong. It's been years since I uploaded my library.

This is part of why I just put any audio only described movies that I want to keep in a folder, and play them with a different media player., I don't want them taking up space in my library. lol

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - 04:15

Where I can get movies that are describe?

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - 04:15

I did a iCloud upload close to 11:00 AM and still doing it. I think it must be an issue with iTunes in my PC. Before it did not take forever.