I'm planning to wipe and reinstall my MacBook Air, but I don't want my music purchases to automatically come back when I open the Music app. I'm moving entirely to Spotify and have around 5,000 purchased songs. Deleting them currently only hides or moves them to the Trash temporarily, and they eventually reappear. Is there a way to remove them from this Mac for good or prevent Music from restoring them?
1 Answer
Music purchased from the iTunes Store is tied to your Apple account, so it can reappear after you sign in or enable library syncing. The purchases can’t be permanently erased from the account, but you can stop them from downloading or appearing by turning off Sync Library, signing out of the Music app or iTunes Store, and deleting the local music library. You can also hide individual purchases from your account’s purchase history if you don’t want them listed in Music.
Yes, they were purchased through the iTunes Store. I mainly want them gone from this Mac and don’t want all 5,000 songs restored after reinstalling. I’ll disable library syncing and remove the local library before signing in again.