[Macworld]

Post your comments for Dealing with iTunes Match's 25,000 track limit here

[lymond]

I'm curious if anyone knows what percentage of iTunes users have more than 25,000 tracks of non-iTunes-purchased music.

[Chris Breen]

lymond, on 14 November 2011 - 11:39 AM, said:

I'm curious if anyone knows what percentage of iTunes users have more than 25,000 tracks of non-iTunes-purchased music.

I'm sure it's a very small percentage. But then those with such massive collections are people who are likely to be very attracted to iTunes Match as they can't carry all of their music with them. As someone with that kind of library, however, I just use a subscription service that grants me access to nearly everything in my library.

[kirkmc]

What interesting is that iTunes knows that I have more than 25K tracks that were not purchased at the iTunes Store. It's not counting the total number of tracks, according to the alert.

Chris Breen, on 14 November 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

lymond, on 14 November 2011 - 11:39 AM, said:

I'm curious if anyone knows what percentage of iTunes users have more than 25,000 tracks of non-iTunes-purchased music.

I'm sure it's a very small percentage. But then those with such massive collections are people who are likely to be very attracted to iTunes Match as they can't carry all of their music with them. As someone with that kind of library, however, I just use a subscription service that grants me access to nearly everything in my library.

And if iTunes had a subscription service, it'd be even better. :-)

[brobdingnagian]

Wow, it never occurred to me that the 25k limit was prohibitive. I assumed that Match would either grab the first 25k tunes or I'd be able to select libraries containing up to 25k songs. Given the obscurantist nature of iCloud on Macs and this limit, which is below even half of my music collection, I guess I'm just not an Apple cloud sort of guy.

[ThomasKnox]

I currently have well over 25,000 tracks in my collection. Something like Music Match is great for me, as I have an iPhone and an iPad that travel with me all over the world, and 2 Apple TVs. However, a hard cutoff at 25,000 pretty much stops me dead in the water.

As a current workaround, I use MyTunesRSS <http://www.codewave.de/> to host my library via a WWW page. I can log in from anywhere in the world and stream anything I own at any time. Plus, it has a very good Mobile Safari page, and an iOS app. For those with very large libraries, I recommend it highly (I do not work there or have any affiliation with this company, I'm just a happy customer).

[KellyDean]

Thank You for the suggestion. I think I'll continue to care my iPod around and an audio cord.

[echo123]

hi! i just joined now 'cause of the iTunes Match limitation. i have over 25,000 songs. like 34,000+, and iTunes Match wouldn't let me subscribe 'cause it's over the limit. is there anyone here who has songs over 25,000 too and what did you do to get Match?

i don't think i would want to throw away 9,000 songs to enjoy Match. do you think Apple will somehow increase the limit in the future?

[Chris Breen]

echo123, on 14 November 2011 - 12:42 PM, said:

hi! i just joined now 'cause of the iTunes Match limitation. i have over 25,000 songs. like 34,000+, and iTunes Match wouldn't let me subscribe 'cause it's over the limit. is there anyone here who has songs over 25,000 too and what did you do to get Match?

i don't think i would want to throw away 9,000 songs to enjoy Match. do you think Apple will somehow increase the limit in the future?

Read over what I wrote in this post. You don't have to throw away 9K songs. Just create a new library and populate it with the tracks (under 25K) that you want to use with iTunes Match.

[bjbj]

Anybody that has 25,000 tracks should probably be paying for a streaming service. iTunes Match just gives you the right to download any song you already have which is going to take up space on your device, and if you have 25,000 tracks then you don't have enough space to fit everything. Solution is quite simple, sign up for Rdio (or a competing service) at $10 a month, let it scan your hard drive and create an online collection for you, and play ANY song from your smartphone as long as you have a 3G signal. No storage problems because you are always streaming, if you want you can download several tracks for offline access in case your stuck on a limited data plan. The downside being the higher fee on a per month basis but the way I see it, having access to everything all the time should be worth it.

[zenwave]

lymond, on 14 November 2011 - 11:39 AM, said:

I'm curious if anyone knows what percentage of iTunes users have more than 25,000 tracks of non-iTunes-purchased music.

In my 42,000 track library, 23,000 tracks were (ahem) downloaded from sources other than iTunes or Amazon - that does not include tracks ripped from purchased CDs.

[zenwave]

Thanks so much for the protocol Chris!

Now the hard part is determining which of my 42,000 tracks to add to this new library. Luckily, I was anal-rententive enough to tag all my tracks with their sources in the Comments fields, so I'm thinking that I will add all my tracks, then delete the tracks purchased via iTunes Music Store first ...

Anyone else care to share their selection strategies?

Jon

[Chris Breen]

zenwave, on 14 November 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

I will add all my tracks, then delete the tracks purchased via iTunes Music Store first ...

That's not really going to help as those purchased tracks don't count against the 25K limit.

[schoonerman]

zenwave, on 14 November 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

Thanks so much for the protocol Chris!

Now the hard part is determining which of my 42,000 tracks to add to this new library. Luckily, I was anal-rententive enough to tag all my tracks with their sources in the Comments fields, so I'm thinking that I will add all my tracks, then delete the tracks purchased via iTunes Music Store first ...

Anyone else care to share their selection strategies?

Jon

iTunes does this for you, sort of. Get Info on a track and look at the Kind field. The word "Purchased" is included in the kind for iTunes store purchases.

Show the Kind column (right click / control-click the column header area and add Kind to what is shown). Now click that Kind column header to sort by kind. (This is moot for me, as I am WAY under 25,000 non-purchased items.)

--John