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How to back up your iTunes library

<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><a href='http://www.imore.com/how-back-your-itunes-library' title="How to back up your iTunes library"><img src='http://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large_wm_blw/public/field/image/2015/07/apple-music-itunes-match-icloud-troubleshoot-hero.JPG?itok=w2__DQYk' />[/url]</p> <p class="intro">Want to use iCloud Music Library or just have peace of mind over your music? Here's how to back up your iTunes library.</p> <p>It's never a bad idea to have a full, local backup of important data you wouldn't want lost. My music—at least for me—is one of those must-backup items; I don't want to have to manually re-build or re-buy thousands of tracks.</p> <p>There are a few ways to back up your iTunes (http://www.imore.com/itunes) library and your music to put your mind at ease. Here are two ways to do so, along with a last-ditch backup option.</p> <h2>Back up iTunes as part of Time Machine (or any other backup service)</h2> <p>If you have Apple's Time Machine (http://www.imore.com/time-machine) backup system enabled—or any other cloud- or system-based backup—your iTunes library should be automatically backed up by default. This way, if you ever need to restore, you can just pop back in Time Machine's History (or a past backup from CrashPlan (http://crashplan.com) or Carbon Copy Cloner (http://bombich.com), for example) to retrieve it.</p> <ul><li>How to back up and restore your Mac with Time Machine (http://www.imore.com/how-set-and-restore-time-machine-backup)</li> <li>How to choose and set up a backup plan for your Mac (http://www.imore.com/choose-setup-backup-mac)</li> <li>More info on backups (http://www.imore.com/tag/backup)</li> </ul><h2>Manually back up your iTunes library</h2> <p>If you're not employing a Mac-wide backup service (really, you should get on that (http://www.imore.com/choose-setup-backup-mac)), or you just want to back up your iTunes library, specifically, here's how to go about that.</p> <ol><li>In the <strong>Finder</strong>, go to <strong>Users &gt; [your username here] &gt; Music</strong>.</li> <li>Select the folder labeled <strong>iTunes</strong>.</li> <li><strong>Copy</strong> it over to your backup drive or online backup service, if you have one. (If you don't have a backup drive, right-click on the folder and select <strong>Duplicate</strong>.)</li> </ol><h2>Get your songs off iCloud Music Library with iTunes Match</h2> <p>If you don't have a backup and your songs are scattered across multiple computers, you can use iCloud Music Library (http://www.imore.com/icloud-music-library) with an iTunes Match (http://www.imore.com/itunes-match) account to unify your libraries on one computer. Here's how.</p> <ol><li>Pick the computer you want your canonical library to live on.</li> <li>Open <strong>iTunes</strong>.</li> <li>Make sure <strong>iCloud Music Library</strong> is enabled in <strong>iTunes &gt; Preferences &gt; General</strong>.</li> <li>Go to the <strong>My Music</strong> tab.</li> <li>Click on the <strong>view type dropdown</strong> in the upper right corner of the screen.

<a href='http://www.imore.com/how-back-your-itunes-library' title="How to back up your iTunes library"><img src='(http://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2015/07/apple-music-view-offline-songs-mac-part1.jpg)?itok=sLXm2g9z' />[/url]
</li> <li>Select the <strong>Show Columns</strong> dropdown.</li> <li>Click on the <strong>iCloud Download</strong> option.

<a href='http://www.imore.com/how-back-your-itunes-library' title="How to back up your iTunes library"><img src='(http://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2015/07/apple-music-view-offline-songs-mac-part2.jpg)?itok=C65M3U7z' />[/url]</li> </ol><p>The cloud icon shows you whether those songs are downloaded locally to your device or not; if not, you'll see a cloud with a downward arrow. You can download that track by clicking on the cloud icon, or by selecting multiple songs and control-clicking on them, then selecting <strong>Make Available Offline</strong>.</p> <h2>Any questions?</h2> <p>Running into issues making an iTunes backup? Pop them in the comments below.</p> </div></div></div><br clear='all'/>

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