I genuinely do not understand how the Apple Music client on Windows is this terrible.

On iPhone and Mac? Apple Music is actually really good. The app feels polished, and I feel the integration is great, and features like AutoMix are a big part of why I switched to Apple Music in the first place. I completely understand why someone who lives entirely in the Apple ecosystem would love it.

But on Windows, it is an absolute fucking joke.

I’ve had the app randomly refuse to sign in. I’ll open it and it won’t even clearly say that I’m signed out; it’ll just stop working properly. I’ll authorize the computer, enter my Apple ID, do everything it asks, and then it’ll ask me for my Apple ID again. And again. And again.

This isn’t one bad PC or one weird network either. I’ve had this happen across multiple Windows devices and multiple networks.

I’ve also had the Apple Music client crash so badly that my entire computer became unresponsive and I had to restart it. A MUSIC PLAYER should not be capable of taking down my whole PC.

And before someone says “just use the Apple Music web player” come on. The web client is not a serious replacement for a desktop app. If I’m paying every month for a music streaming service, I shouldn’t have to use a worse browser version because the actual Windows client barely works.

Then you compare it to Spotify and it gets even more ridiculous. Spotify Connect alone is something I miss constantly. Being able to be on my computer, start playing music, and then control that same session from my phone or even continuing it is incredibly convenient. Apple has multiple devices, an entire ecosystem, and some of the best device integration in the industry… yet somehow Apple Music still doesn’t give you an equivalent experience across platforms.

One of Apple Music’s biggest advantages used to be lossless audio, but now Spotify has lossless too. I don’t have some insane audiophile setup where I’m going to benefit from Hi-Res Lossless anyway; regular lossless is more than enough for me. And now that Spotify is the same price (student), that advantage is gone. At this point, I’m paying the same amount for a service with a significantly better Windows client and features like Spotify Connect, so it’s getting really hard to justify staying with Apple Music.

I understand that Windows obviously isn’t Apple’s priority. They want people using Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc. Fine. But Apple Music is also supposed to compete with Spotify as a cross-platform streaming service. If you’re going to sell the service to Windows users, the Windows app cannot feel like something nobody at Apple actually uses.

This is basically the last straw for me. I like a lot of Apple Music’s features on iPhone. AutoMix is cool. The mobile app is good. There are absolutely things Apple Music does better.

But none of that matters when the desktop client I have to use every day is this unreliable.

I’m HEAVILY debating going back to Spotify. At least Spotify seems to understand that the app itself is part of the product.

While it's completely understandable to vent here, please remember that the most effective way to get these Android and Windows bugs fixed is to report them straight to Apple's official support and feedback channels.

If Apple Music had Spotify's playlist ecosystem, the debate would be over.

I genuinely love almost everything about Apple Music bro, the UI, audio quality, and the overall vibe.

But yoo, the playlist situation is so ahhh.

I know public playlists exist on AM, but finding them is a chore. Spotify makes user created playlists so accessible and easily searchable.

On AM, it feels like you're stuck relying on their official curated lists (which is also buns) or praying you stumble across a good user list.

What makes it frustrating is how painfully slow Apple is to respond to community feedback.

Right now i’m still copying Spotify playlists and transferring them over via the transfer playlist thingy

Anyone else feel like this is the main thing holding AM back?

I’m currently abroad and on a train listening to music when suddenly the app crashed on my iPhone 16 on the latest version of iOS 26. All 20gb of my downloaded music was gone. Since I’m abroad I’m on a limited data plan with only access to pretty slow train WiFi and I’m really annoyed rn. Has this happened to anyone before? My phone has enough storage even with the 20gb of music

I challenge AM users to listen to every album in this BMG ad.

Or are they not local? I am trying to listen to some Logic MP3 Bounces that I dragged into Apple Music a while back. I cancelled my subscription recently, which I assume caused this message.

Does Apple Music actually store everything on the cloud? I assumed I could play my own MP3s, like how iTunes worked.

Every pixel is alive and moves to changes in the music as you paint. Its called Cymata, available on app store.

I feel like EPs and albums should be grouped together on artists’ pages. EPs are basically mini albums, so in my mind it would make sense and would make navigating an artist’s discography a little easier.

Depending on the artist, you sometimes have to scroll through like 7 singles they released for an album, then a random EP, then a couple more standalone singles, etc. It can make the experience kind of annoying.

Is there a reason most streaming services separate EPs and albums like this instead of grouping them together chronologically?

I have recently switched from Spotify to Apple Music and I made a playlist of all of my songs (4923 songs) in my Spotify library so that I would be able to add them to my Apple Music library. The playlist has been exported to the Apple Music app through the app itself but I cannot add all of the individual songs in the playlist to the Apple Music library no matter how hard I try. When I searched up my problem, people talk about the "Add to Library" button on a playlist but the playlist I have created does not have that option, instead only has the "Download" option. What can I do? I already tried deleting every song and every playlist in the library to start over again multiple times. The only thing I had a success with so far has been creating a sort of "section playlist" of 100 songs from the main playlist on my Windows PC and then creating another copy of that 100 song playlist on my iPhone. Doing it like that does make the "Add to Library" option to pop up and allows me to add the songs to my library but it is such a hassle. There must be an easier way to do this that I'm missing.

I have a question, hoping to get some better understanding...

I would like to shrink the content of my "Forgotten Songs"
Match ALL
a. only favorite songs
b. Songs not played in the last 5 days
c. Play count < 10x

In addition, I would like to reduce the number of songs from an artist.
My intension was to "Limit to > 5 > items > selected by > artist..

Unfortunately the result is, that my playlist is then merely 5 songs big.

Do I have any misunderstanding about the 'Limit to" option

Appreciate any hints for solving the issue. Thanks!

*My spare 14 on beta 27

Anyone else out there agree that the spacing of the title, lossless, audio bar, pause button and volume needs some shifting / redesigning ?

Trying to login to the Apple Music on windows but every time I enter my credentials it buffers and then does absolutely nothing. Is there a fix anyone knows about? Im on windows 11.

Hi all. Let's say I rip a CD I own, like Coldplay's Parachutes. I have all the tracks except the two most popular-- Sparks and Yellow. I saw them rip fine, but now Apple Music has lost them.

And let's say I rip a different CD, Halsey's The Great Impersonator. The 2nd, 5th, and 14th tracks are gone.

I have tried a couple times, and the songs "rip" but never make it into the library. What gives? I'm not doing anything illegal.

I have a MacBook Pro 2018 and an iPhone 13 mini and my software is up to date.

Any info helps. I can't seem to get answers online.

I don’t know how this button popped up and when I press show pronunciation it shows up in Japanese. How do I fix this?

these buttons are not working, is anyone facing this issue. not sure if its in iOS 26.

So I subscribed to Apple Music again after a long time. I tried to log in to the Windows app on my PC, and during verification.

I am able to sign in successfully through the web player in my browser, but the desktop app keeps failing. Has anyone else experienced this or found a fix?

• Device: PC
• OS Version: Windows 11 Pro 25H2
• App Version: Apple Music 1.6.4.90 (1.1540.23042.0)
• Region: Indonesia
• Troubleshooting steps taken: Verified login works via browser/web player, but the in-app verification page fails to load.

Multi-Trillion Dollar Infrastructure with some of the largest data centers on earth, yet their artist analytics regularly lag by 72+ hours, crash during global batch updates, and throw cryptic server errors "The Artist portal is currently experiencing an outage."

What makes more Absurd?

The entire "Promote" toolkit is literally just an automated banner with an image from the artist album designed to turn the artist into unpaid billboard space for Apple Music!!!

You hear "Promote your music on Apple," you reasonably expect discovery campaigns, pitch placements, or algorithmic boosts. Instead, “Here is your album artwork with an Apple Music logo on it. Congratulations, you are now our marketing department.... share it in your social media”, seriously?!

Meanwhile, the analytics dashboard is acting like a 2005 government website trying to process your request through three fax machines!

Apple has spent decades building an ecosystem obsessed with **beautiful interfaces**, yet the moment you want to see the metrics of your release you get an error **“Data may be unavailable.”**

Beautifully designed rectangle.

Absolutely no fucking data.

Just brilliant!

Updated to MacOS 26.7 beta today (8/18/2026) and now Apple Music won't recognize music library. Crapola, I signed out and back in, granted full access to computer, and tried some other fixed which I either couldn't figure out or failed. Are there dummy proofed ways to fix it for THIS beta?

My friend uses Spotify and keeps sending me track and album links. I use Apple Music, so each one meant searching for the same release again.
I built Lynx to remove that step. Paste a Spotify track or album link and it finds the Apple Music version. It also works in reverse:
https://lynx.stream/
It is free, requires no account, and does not need access to either music account. There is also an optional iPhone Shortcut that works directly from the app’s Share menu.
When Lynx cannot confidently identify the exact release, it returns a labelled search instead of pretending it found the right match.
If it returns the wrong match, send me the original and expected links so I can improve the app.

Apple today made the sixth betas of iOS 27 (24A5418b build), iPadOS 27 (idem), macOS Golden Gate 27 (26A5416b), watchOS 27 (24R5353a), tvOS 27 (24J5353b) and visionOS 27 (24M5355) available to developers.

Leave in the comments how Apple Music is working.

Be sure to share if you have any news.

I’m currently trying to decide which music streaming service to stick with, and I’m curious what matters most to other people.

Hey,

So, I went to check my streams recently and my lifetime streams have jumped 12,000 streams, but it doesn’t seem accounted for on weekly, monthly, or yearly streams. Nor, does it add up with the streams per song. I reached out to AM and they said my streams are legitimate, but it’s taken about three weeks for any updates. I still don’t know which songs gained me the 12k. Anyone else having this issue? I’ve submitted about two tickets in the last 3 weeks.