How to Stop Apple Music Automatic Downloads on iPhone and Mac

Apple Music lets you download tracks or entire albums for offline listening on iPhone, Mac and PC. However, if you’re running out of storage space on your device, it’s best to stream Apple Music and only download the specific songs you listen to the most. However, the Music app or iTunes can put a key in the works and automatically download songs and albums when you add them to your library. It’s annoying, isn’t it?

Below we will look at what you need to do to stop Apple Music from automatically downloading music on iPhone, Mac and PC. The automatic download setting doesn’t sync across devices via iCloud. So you will need to disable the feature on each device you want to stop the downloads from happening automatically.

Disable Apple Music Automatic Downloads – iPhone

Apple Music has come a long way since its launch on the iPhone in 2015. It has been greatly improved in terms of navigation, brings better recommendations, comes with dark mode support, has a nifty autoplay feature, and more. You can stop automatic downloads on Apple Music on your iPhone by going into the Settings app.

Stage 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone.

Step 2: Scroll down and tap Music.

Stage 3: Turn off the switch next to Automatic Downloads.

Fly: You can also use the Optimize Storage option to impose a limit on the amount of storage that Apple Music can use (4GB, 8GB, 16GB, etc.). You can use it with or without the Auto Download option enabled.

Additionally, you can tap on Downloaded Music to bring up a list of all downloaded music, organized by artist and album; then you can delete any listed item by swiping right and selecting Delete.

Now that you have disabled automatic downloads in Apple Music, you can tap the Download icon next to the album or track to initiate a download manually. Or you can long-press an item and select Download in the context menu.

Disable Apple Music Automatic Downloads – Mac

macOS Catalina users need to use the dedicated Music app to stream Apple Music. Yes—Apple unplugged iTunes after macOS Mojave. The new Music app is sleek and much more fluid to use. You can stop automatic downloads for Apple Music on your Mac by going into the Preferences pane of the app.

Note: If you’re using macOS Mojave or earlier on your Mac, continue to the next section to learn how to disable automatic downloads in Apple Music in iTunes.

Stage 1: Open the Music app. Then tap Music in the menu bar and choose Preferences.

Step 2: Switch to the Downloads tab.

Stage 3: Turn off the switch next to Downloads. Click OK to save your changes.

Fly: To remove a previously downloaded track or album, right-click the item and select Remove Download.

You can always download tracks and albums manually by clicking the Download icon next to each item or by right-clicking and selecting Download.

iTunes – Disable Apple Music Automatic Downloads on PC and Mac

Unlike Mac, you are still limited to listening to Apple Music on PC via iTunes. If you want to disable automatic music downloads, you must go to the iTunes Preferences pane. The steps below apply to both the traditional desktop and Microsoft Store version of iTunes. You can also use them to turn off automatic downloads in iTunes on macOS Mojave and earlier.

Stage 1: Open iTunes.

Step 2: Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences. If you’re using iTunes on a Mac, select iTunes in the menu bar and choose Preferences instead.

Stage 3: Switch to the Downloads tab. Then uncheck the box next to Music. Click OK to save your changes.

Fly: If you want to remove a previously downloaded track or album, right-click the item and select Remove Downloads.

Although you can turn off automatic downloads, you can continue to download tracks manually. To do this, click the 3 dots next to a track or album and click Download. Or right-click an item and select Download.

Disable Apple Music Automatic Downloads – Android

If you’re using (or planning to install) Apple Music on an Android smartphone, you don’t have to worry about turning off automatic downloads. The app does not have the ability to automatically download tracks; you can only do this manually.

Go to Manual

Even if storage space isn’t important, turning off automatic downloads in Apple Music gives you the freedom to decide which songs you want to keep on your iPhone, Mac or PC. Automatic downloads don’t make much sense either if you have access to a faster and/or cheaper internet connection.

Next: Having trouble downloading tracks to your iPhone manually? Click on the next link to learn how to fix this.