---
title: 'Setting My Music Free'
pubDate: '1/3/2026'
tags: ['Music', 'Tech', 'Apps']
---

I've been a loyal Apple Music subscriber pretty much since it launched 10 years ago, and I've really got used to having almost any song I could imagine wanting right in my pocket. I liked the promise of carrying my existing music library into the world of music streaming, and having everything sync seamlessly between devices. I was very frustrated with how buggy and unreliable syncing music to iOS devices at the time (keep reading to find out if this will bite me in the butt again), so an all-you-can-eat buffet of music, combined with what was promised to be a seamless syncing method, was far too good to pass up.

## The Final Straw

Historically I've been quite meticulous with how I organize my music – though I know there are people _far_ more meticulous than I am. That includes changing metadata for things like genre, because I don't need 15 variations on "Alternative" when just one will do. I also like changing track titles to remove extraneous information that could be gleaned from the metadata, like featured artist. Turns out, Apple Music does NOT like this, and it's a constant fight to keep things the way I like them.

But, even if you decide to throw in the towel like I eventually did, Apple Music often doesn't even like _its own_ metadata. Instead of just leaving things you've added to your library alone, it will just randomly change things around, which would be ok except it often doesn't propagate correctly, which leads to albums being split (at least, that's my theory as to why it happens). I even had it change album art to something completely unrelated to the album.

What finally broke me however was when an album I had imported – not even from the iTunes Store, I got it in a Humble Music Bundle over a decade ago – became "unavailable to play". At some point in the last decade, Apple Music must have co-opted that album and then, when it was taken off streaming, decided I could no longer have access to it.

One thing became clear; with Apple Music, I don't even own the music that I own. Maybe I should have seen this coming, but better late than never I suppose.

## Libera Musica

Anyway, I began my quest to liberate my music, but it wasn't without issue. As I mentioned, at some point Apple Music co-opted a chunk of my music. There was no rhyme or reason to which albums, or even which individual tracks, got absorbed into the streaming machine. This meant a non-insignificant portion of my music was either just unavailable, or imprisoned behind DRM. Yes, that means Apple locked music I own and imported into their service behind a subscription!!! That's when I knew I was making the right call...

My first step was to see how much music I could rescue just by downloading the tracks that remained untouched and DRM-free. This is where I ran into the next major issue, but this time it was mostly my fault, and I could have saved myself _hours_ if I spent more time troubleshooting. See, a huge number of tracks downloaded as weird `.movpkg` files, which I couldn't really do anything with.

Turns out, if I had just turned off "Enable Lossless Audio" in the Music app's settings, under the "Playback" tab, I could have saved myself a lot of time and headache...

However, the silver lining is that, while I was downloading the handful of albums I purchased from Amazon over the years, I discovered that just about every vinyl record I ever bought from them was made available as a DRM-free digital download. A nice little bonus, considering it gave me a little bit of a head start on buying some music I only had access to through my subscription.

## 8,000 Songs In My Pocket

Now that I had my music all together, I needed some way to (obsessively) manage it all, and get it synced to my phone.

I had hope that someone at Apple found it in their heart to fix the music syncing issues that cropped up in iOS well over a decade ago. Nope, apparently it's even worse, and a quick web search showed me I'm not imagining it. I'd also ruled out iTunes Match out the gate, because of the sub-par experience I had with it, and if they hadn't fixed manual syncing, I wasn't going to spend $25 to see if they fixed iTunes Match. The product page that clearly hasn't been touched since 2011 didn't inspire much confidence either.

If I wanted something reliable, I would have to look outside the slowly deteriorating mess that is Apple's music infrastructure.

After a bit of searching, I came across an app called [Doppler](https://brushedtype.co/doppler/), for both iPhone and Mac. I've been trying it out, and it's been a pretty solid experience so far. It's a simpler app, but I think that works to its benefit. Getting music from the Mac to the iPhone using Doppler isn't as seamless as, say, getting music from iTunes to an iPod back in the day. It's for sure a more manual process. But it works, and can even be done wirelessly.

It sort of reminds me of loading music onto my first MP3 player back in like 2004, and I don't think I hate it. There's a certain charm to it, and I think it makes the whole process feel more intentional. Not quite putting on a vinyl record, or even a CD, but it adds a bit of soul to an otherwise cold and mechanical process. I think that was lost in the age of the smartphone, and even moreso since streaming really took hold.

Am I romanticizing it a bit? Probably. On the other hand though, I might have a total breakdown, and buy an iPod Classic on eBay. Whatever happens though, I think I'm sticking with owning my music, and taking back control over how it's organized, for the foreseeable future.
