How-To

How to Download All Songs in Your Apple Music Library

By Adam Davidson

Published June 25, 2023

Do you want to listen to all of your Apple Music content offline? Learn how to download all of the songs in your Apple Music library using this guide.

It’s fair to say that the launch of the first iPod changed the way we listen to music. Other mp3 players existed before it, but the huge popularity of the product made it the dominant way to listen to music on the go.

Times have moved on, and music streaming is now king. Services like Apple Music and Spotify let you stream millions of songs instantly without needing to download them to your device.

Sometimes, however, you might need to go old school and listen to downloaded music offline. You might even decide that you want to add your entire Apple Music library to your phone or computer. Adding every song, album, or playlist one at a time could end up taking forever, but there’s a better way. Learn how to download all songs in your Apple Music library below.

Why Should You Download Content in Apple Music?

Apple Music is a music streaming service at heart. That means that if you’re subscribed to Apple Music, you can listen to any of the more than 100 million songs as long as you’re connected to the internet.

Sometimes, however, you may want to listen to Apple Music offline. In this case, you’ll need to download it to your device first. Downloading individual songs, albums, and playlists is quick and easy to do, but there’s no native way to download everything in your Apple Music library at once.

Thankfully, there are a couple of workarounds that will let you do just that. Keep in mind that if you have a very large library, downloading the music will use up significant storage space.

How to Download All Songs in Apple Music on Desktop

Both methods of downloading all of your Apple Music libraries at once involve creating a playlist that consists of every song in your library. You can do this quickly and easily in the desktop app by creating a smart playlist and tweaking some of the settings.

Smart playlists aren’t available on your iPhone, so you’ll need to use the desktop app for this method.

To download your Apple entire library using a smart playlist:

1. Open the Music app on the desktop.
2. Click the File menu in the menu bar.
   
3. Select New.
   
4. Click Smart Playlist.
   
5. Alternatively, you can create a new smart playlist with the keyboard shortcut Alt+Cmd+N.
6. Click the first drop-down.
   
7. Select Time.
   
8. Select the second drop-down and click the Is Greater Than option.
   
9. Ensure the time is set to 00:00. This will ensure that the smart playlist contains every song longer than zero seconds in length, which should be all of your music.
   
10. Make sure Limit to X Items is not checked.
    
11. Click OK and your playlist will be created.
12. Click the playlist name to rename it to something easily recognizable.
    
13. To download the playlist (and therefore your entire library) to your computer, tap the red Arrow. Depending on the size of your library, this may take some time.
    
14. To download your entire library to your iPhone, open the Apple Music app on your iPhone.
15. Tap the Library tab.
    
16. Under Recently Added, you should see your newly created playlist.
    
17. If it doesn’t appear, return to your desktop, open the Music app, and click Music in the menu bar.
    
18. Select Settings (or Preferences) on older versions of macOS.
    
19. Check Sync Library.
    
20. Repeat steps 14-16 and you should see your new playlist. Tap the playlist to open it.
21. To download the playlist containing your entire library, tap the red Arrow.
22. Depending on the size of your library, this may take some time.

How to Download All Songs in Apple Music on Mobile

You can also create a playlist of your entire library directly on your iPhone using the Shortcuts app.

This method does work, but it’s a little glitchy, so if it doesn’t work entirely as you expect, keep trying! We found that the playlist wouldn’t generate the first time we ran the shortcut, but would the second time. Also, the contents of the playlist would disappear after a time.

However, if you follow the steps, you should be able to download your entire Apple Music library.

To download your Apple Music library using Shortcuts:

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. Tap the Gallery tab.
   
3. Scroll down to the Explore Apple Music section.
   
4. Scroll left until you find the Make Top 25 Playlist shortcut.
   
5. Tap the + (plus) icon.
   
6. Select the Shortcuts tab.
   
7. You should see the new shortcut at the top of your list.
8. Tap the Three Dots icon.
   
9. Toggle Limit off.
   
10. Tap Top 25 Most Played.
    
11. Give the playlist a recognizable name.
    
12. Tap Done.
    
13. Tap the Make Top 25 Playlist shortcut tile to run the shortcut.
    
14. Open Apple Music.
15. Tap the Library tab.
    
16. Select Playlists.
    
17. In the top-right corner, tap Sort.
    
18. Select Recently Added.
    
19. You should see your new playlist at the top of the list—tap the playlist.
20. If there are no songs in it, open Shortcuts and run the Make Top 25 Playlist shortcut again.
21. Return to Apple Music and open the newest playlist. You should be able to tell if the playlist has songs as it will have cover art.
    
22. If the playlist still doesn’t have songs, keep retrying the shortcut until it works.
23. Once your playlist has been generated correctly, open the playlist and tap the red Arrow to download the contents of the playlist.
    
24. Depending on the size of your library, this may take some time.

Apple Music Tips and Tricks

Knowing how to download all songs in your Apple Music library using one of these methods can save you hours and hours of mindless tapping. Downloading all of your content (song by song and album by album) could take you days. By creating a playlist that contains all of your music, you can do the job in minutes.

As an Apple Music user, there are plenty of other useful tips and tricks you should know. If Apple Music is missing some of your favorite music, you can learn how to add your own music to Apple Music. If you’ve created a killer playlist, you might want to know how to change the playlist picture to something more suitable. And if you’re a classical music fan, you might want to learn more about Apple Music Classical.