Apple Music is great for letting you listen to practically any music you like from their vast digital library.
That is… as long as you have an internet connection.
Naturally, you can’t stream music from an online library when you’re not connected to the internet, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying Apple Music even then!
Today, we’re going to take a look at how offline listening works on Apple Music, so you never have to be without your favorite music – internet or no internet.
Here’s How Offline Listening on Apple Music Works:
Apple Music allows music downloads for offline listening on all plans except the Voice plan. If you are subscribed to a compatible Apple Music plan, you may download any tracks or albums and listen to them offline. Downloaded tracks will only be accessible so long as you are still subscribed.
How Do you Listen to Apple Music Offline?
First of all, you’ll need an Apple Music subscription that is not the “Voice” plan.
The Apple Music Voice plan is the most basic and affordable Apple Music plan and, unfortunately does not support offline listening.
However, if you are subscribed to any other plan besides Voice, you should be able to download music for offline listening.
- You will first need to add the tracks and/or albums you wish to listen to offline, to your library.
- Once this is done, view your library, where you should now see all the music you added.
- Now, if you interact with the music in question, you should see a “download” option; select this.
Your chosen music should begin downloading, and should still be available in your library the next time you’re without an internet connection.
Can All Content on Apple Music Be Downloaded for Offline Use?
As far as we know, anything that’s on Apple Music should be available for download to any user with a compatible paid subscription plan.
So as long as you’re not using the Voice plan, have an internet connection at the time of downloading, and have room on your local storage for the content, you should be able to download it.
Apple Music may have restrictions on certain types of content that we are unaware of, but as of this writing, we believe that anything available for streaming, should be available for download.
Does Apple Music Check for Internet when Starting Up?
Apple Music should always connect to the internet when a connection is available, but the app will still work whether it can connect or not.
If your device is connected to the internet – via cellular data or Wi-Fi – when you start up the app, then the app will immediately connect.
However, if you do not have internet when you open the Music app, it should still open and allow you to listen to anything you have previously downloaded.
Of course, while offline, you will not be able to search or stream from Apple Music’s digital library, so the functionality of the application will be limited.
Any music you either purchased in the past and added to your device, or downloaded through your Apple Music subscription for offline listening, should still be available.
How Long Does Apple Music Keep Downloaded Music?
In theory, Apple Music should allow you to keep any downloaded content indefinitely.
Indefinitely, that is, as long as you’re still a paid subscriber.
Naturally, Apple is disinclined to give you anything for free if it doesn’t somehow benefit the company.
This, of course, includes allowing you to listen to downloaded content after you have stopped paying for an Apple Music subscription.
Whether Apple Music automatically removes it when your subscription lapses, or simply prevents you from listening to it, the effect on you will be the same: you will lose access to the content.
However, in theory, this should be the only circumstance in which Apple Music removes your access to content; as long as you remain a paid subscriber, downloaded content should remain.
That being said, many users report that content they downloaded for later offline listening has mysteriously gone missing, or that strange errors like duplicated songs or albums have occurred.
Apple Music certainly is not perfect, and bugs like this do crop up.
Because of this, you can’t really be certain that any music you download from Apple Music will be left alone, but as long as you don’t experience a glitch like this, it should remain indefinitely.
How Much Music Can you Download for Offline Listening?
Apple Music users are able to download up to 100,000 songs to be stored in the music libraries.
However, you cannot download content if you do not have storage space for it, so you can only download as much music as you have space to store it.
In theory, the size of your local drive (your computer’s hard drive, your phone’s internal memory, etc.) should be the only limiting factor.
That is to say, as long as you have space to complete the download, Apple Music should let you download as much music as you want.