9 Solutions to Fix Apple Music Not Downloading Songs – 2024 Guide

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coco
December 26, 2023

With Apple Music subscription, all tracks are available at your fingertips and you can listen to music offline. All you have to do is download songs, playlists and albums directly to your device. However, songs are not always downloaded smoothly, you may encounter all kinds of issues. Read further to learn how to fix Apple Music downloading issues.

Related: How to get Spotify for free?

Why won’t my Apple Music download?

There are several reasons to cause Apple Music won’t download songs, playlists or albums.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to fix several common issues causing Apple Music songs won’t download.

1. Check the internet connection

Connect your devices to the Internet over a Wi-Fi or cellular network. 

On Mac

  1. Click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar, make sure you are connected to a network.
  2. Click the toggle icon to refresh the network.

On your iPhone, iPad

  1. Open the Settings app on your device and double-check the Wi-Fi network you’re connected to.
  2. Open a webpage to test your network.

2. Check your Apple Music subscription

Make sure that your Apple Music subscription hasn’t expired. You can check your subacription details on your account information page.

On Mac

  1. Open the App Store app.
  2. Click the sign-in button  or your name at the bottom of the sidebar.
  3. Click Account Settings at the top of the window. You might be asked to sign in.
  4. On the page that appears, scroll to Subscriptions, then click Manage.
  5. Check whether Apple Music subscription is active.
Check your Apple Music subscription

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

  1. Open the Settings app. 
  2. Tap your name, then tap Subscriptions.
  3. Check whether Apple Music subscription is active.
Check your Apple Music subscription

3. Turn on Sync Library

You must turn on Sync Library to download music from Apple Music to your library. With the latest version of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Sync Library is turned on by default. If you turned off Sync Library, you can turn it back on. Just follow the steps below for your device.

On Mac

  1. Open the Apple Music app.
  2. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, choose Music > Preferences.
  3. Go to the General tab and select Sync Library to turn it on. 
  4. Click OK.
Turn on Sync Library

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

  1. Go to Settings > Music.
  2. Turn on Sync Library.
Turn on Sync Library

On your PC with iTunes for Windows

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, choose Edit > Preferences.
  3. Go to the General tab and select iCloud Music Library to turn it on. 
  4. Click OK.

4. Authorize your computer

You must authorize this computer before you can play content saved offline on this computer. To authorize this computer, go to the Account menu and select Authorizations.

Authorize your computer

5. Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

  1. Back up your device using iCloud or your computer.
  2. Plug your device into power and connect to the internet with Wi-Fi.
  3. Go to Settings > General, then tap Software Update.
  4. Choose the software update that you want to install. You can choose to stay on iOS or iPadOS 15 and still get important security updates. Or you can choose the option to upgrade to iOS or iPadOS 16.
  5. Tap Install Now. If you see Download and Install instead, tap it to download the update, enter your passcode, then tap Install Now. If you don’t know your passcode, learn what to do.

6. Remove your device from previous Apple ID

If you encounter below error, it means your device is linked to another Apple ID.

Remove your device from previous Apple ID

Computers and devices can be associated with a different Apple ID once every 90 days. Days remaining indicates the number of days before you can associate that specific computer or device with a different Apple ID.

If you remember the previous Apple ID which your device linked to, log in that Apple ID and remove your device.

On your Mac or PC

  1. On your Mac, open the Apple Music app. Or on your PC, open iTunes for Windows.
  2. From the menu bar on your Mac, choose Account > Account Settings. Or from the menu bar in iTunes on your PC, choose Account > View My Account. You might need to sign in with your Apple ID.
  3. Click Manage Devices. If no devices are associated with your Apple ID, this section won’t appear.
  4. If you want to remove a device, click Remove. If you can’t remove a device, sign out of your Apple ID on that device and try again. If you still can’t remove it, you might need to wait up to 90 days to associate the device with a different Apple ID.
devices are associated with your Apple ID

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

  1. Tap Settings, tap your name, then tap Media & Purchases.
  2. Tap View Account. You might be asked to sign in.
  3. Scroll down, then tap Remove This Device.

7. Make sure Apple Music songs, albums, playlists are added to Library

You can download Apple Music songs, albums, playlists after you have added them to Library or Playlist.

How to add music from Apple Music on your iPhone, iPad, or Android?

  1. Open the Apple Music app.
  2. Touch and hold a song, album, or playlist that you want to add to your library.
  3. Tap Add to Library or Add to a Playlist.
add Apple Music to your library

How to add music from Apple Music on your Mac or PC?

  1. Open the Apple Music app or iTunes. 
  2. Find music that you want to add to your library.
  3. To add a song, click the Add button Add button.  To add an album, playlist, or music video, click +Add.
add Apple Music to your library

8. Check the cloud status of songs

  1. On your Mac, open the Apple Music app. On your PC, open iTunes, choose Music from the pop-up menu, then click Library.
  2. In the sidebar, select Songs.
  3. In the menu bar, choose View > Show View Options.
  4. Select Cloud Status and Cloud Download.

If you see No Longer Available next to a song that’s grayed out, the song was added from Apple Music and was removed from the Apple Music catalog. These songs can’t be downloaded.

Check the cloud status of songs

9. Check Auto Downloads

If you want Apple Music to automatically download music when added to your library, make sure Automatic Downloads is enabled.

On Mac

  1. Open Apple Music app.
  2. Choose Music > Preferences, then click General.
  3. Turn on Automatic Downloads.
Automatic Downloads

On iOS

  1. Open Settings – Music.
  2. Scroll down and toggle Automatic Downloads on.

How to download Apple Music to MP3 without any issues?

If you often encounter kinds of issues while downloading songs from Apple Music, you can use this third-party Apple Music downloading tool – Pazu Apple Music Converter.

Pazu Apple Music Converter lets you convert any copy protected Apple Music and iTunes songs you have in your library to MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AIFF without any loss in quality. One of the distinguishing features of Pazu Apple Music Converter is that it can download and convert Apple Music at a really fast speed — almost 10 times faster than any other similar software. It is integrated with the Apple Music web player, so you can batch convert any Apple Music playlist or album to the format you choose without iTunes app. The following tutorial will show you how to download Apple Music to MP3 and get Apple Music for free. 

Step 1 Launch Pazu Apple Music Converter

Download, install and run Pazu Apple Music Converter on your Mac or Windows.

Apple Music Converter

Step 2 Choose output format

The default format is M4A in 256kbps. Apple Music Converter also supports MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF. Click the gear icon if you want to change output format or output folder.

Apple Music Converter settings

Step 3 Choose a playlist, artist or album you want to download

Follow the on-screen instructions to choose a playlist, artist, or album that you want to download.

add Apple Music songs

Step 4 Start to download Apple Music songs

Click “Convert” button to start downloading Apple Music songs, albums and playlists to mp3, so you can play them anywhere you want, even after cancelling Apple Music subscription.

convert Apple Music to MP3