How to find where the Music app saves songs on your Mac

This tutorial will show you how to locate where songs, videos, and Apple Music files from the Music app are saved on your Mac.

Music folder in Finder on Mac

The different files status in the Music app

Open the Music app on your Mac, and check if you see the Cloud Status option in the top menu bar? If not, right-click in this thin strip and choose Cloud Status.

Various Cloud Status like Purchased, Apple Music, Matched, Removed, Waiting, Ineligible, and Duplicate in Music app on Mac

If you don’t have an Apple Music subscription, please jump to the next heading. However, if you have an Apple Music subscription, it’s useful to know the status of each song in your music library. In most cases, you’ll see one of the following statuses for every song under the Cloud Status heading:

Purchased

You have purchased this song from the iTunes Store, or it’s a U2 song that Apple offered for free.

Apple Music

These are songs you have added to your library using your active Apple Music subscription. The day your subscription ends and you don’t renew, these songs will disappear from your music library.

Matched

These are songs that you had on your Mac. They could be ones you ripped from CDs, downloaded from the internet, or imported from elsewhere.

Now, when you have an Apple Music subscription (or an iTunes Match subscription – included for free in your Apple Music subscription as well as sold separately if you don’t subscribe to Apple Music), all eligible local songs (that you got from anywhere) are uploaded to iCloud music library and made available on all your Apple devices like your iPhone, iPad, other Macs, Android phone, etc.

However, when a local song from your library is also available in Apple Music’s catalog of 100 million songs, then that local file isn’t unnecessarily uploaded to iCloud; instead, Apple Music just takes your local songs’ name, matches them with that same song already available in Apple Music, and makes them available on all your devices in excellent quality.

The original version of these songs will stay on your Mac even after you cancel your Apple Music subscription.

Removed

These are matched songs that you removed from your Apple Music library using your iPhone or iPad, but since they are locally saved on Mac with the actual files, they show up in the Mac’s Music app. You may not find them in the Music app on your iPhone or iPad.

Waiting

These are local songs that still haven’t been uploaded to iCloud Library (or matched), and thus aren’t available for streaming on your other devices.

Ineligible

These local songs can’t be matched or uploaded to Apple Music. This is because they are music videos, songs with a bit rate of less than 96 kbps, a file larger than 200 MB, or a playtime longer than two hours.

Duplicate

A second copy of the same local or purchased music.

See the location of purchased and local songs on your Mac

Using this method, you can see the folder location of Purchased, Matched, Removed, Waiting, Ineligible, and Duplicate songs.

1) Open the Music app and find the desired song.

2) Right-click over its name and select Show in Finder. A folder will open immediately and show this song’s file there.

Show in Finder in Music app on Mac

Tip: To navigate easily to locations where other songs are saved, click View from the top of the Finder folder and select Show Path Bar. This will show the path of this folder at the bottom of the Finder screen. From here, you can easily go back to other folders in the hierarchy.

Finder folder showing where Music app songs are saved on Mac

See the folder location of downloaded Apple Music songs on Mac

1) Open Finder and click your Home folder from the left sidebar.

Tip: If you don’t see the Home folder, click Finder > Settings or Preferences from the top menu bar. Now, go to the Sidebar section and check the box next to the tiny Home icon.

2) From here, get inside the Music folder.

Music folder in Mac Finder Home folder

3) Once again, go to the Music subfolder and then navigate to Media > Apple Music.

4) Here, you will see all your Apple Music downloads categorized in proper artist folders followed by the album name folder. Click a folder to see the offline Apple Music song files.

See Apple Music downloaded files in Finder folder on Mac

Note: Downloaded Apple Music are DRM-protected, and you can’t play them in any other Mac app except Music and QuickTime.

Protected music can only be played with Music or QuickTime Player

Related: How to restore DRM-laden Apple Music matched songs to DRM-free

See the Music media folder location on Mac

1) Open the Music app and click Music > Settings or Preferences from the top menu bar.

2) Click Files. Here, you’ll see the folder location where the Music app is saving your media.

Music Media folder location on Mac

3) Now, you can manually go to this location to see your Music app media files.

Music Media folder in Finder on Mac

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