iclouditunesitunes-match
I have some very large, high quality music files that I have downloaded from other services (e.g. Beatport) and these files are 1411 kbps, or about 10 MB per minute of music.
I have been considering iTunes Match, but am somewhat confused about the upload process.
Would the service irreversibly degrade my tracks to 256 kpbs?
Will there be a limit on how many of these large tracks I can keep in the cloud?
Unfortunately, iTunes Match really isn't made to be a backup service in this way, and it can be really easy to loose stuff if you don't have other means of recovering it.
For those songs you purchased from iTunes, you should be able to still see them in the purchased list in the iTunes store, and re-add them to your library. Many other sources, like Amazon, will also allow you to re-download their files.
If you had a Time Machine backup, maybe your old library is stored there as well?
If you happen to have an iPod, and had any music synced to it, you could actually use that as a 'backup' and pull your songs from there using an application like iRip. This would only work though if you had a device with the files actually on there, as in a iPod classic or nano, or an iOS device you had downloaded music too.
Finally, you MAY be able to contact Apple Support and see if they have any way of helping, but this may take a very long time and not actually produce anything. I have had a hard time getting support on anything with Match, so replacing an entire library may even be harder. I would recommend calling them if possible.
When you create your Smart Folder, Set Kind to Music ยป All
Then, add an additional field. When prompted for what you are searching for in the first column, select "Other" then pick "Codecs" from the drop-down list:
The resulting Smart Folder should include AAC files but not Apple Lossless ones.
Best Answer
Apple covers this in their FAQ: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146
Refer to the about file formats section:
So - your local songs won't change unless you delete them. The cloud will have at max, 256 AAC versions of the matched or uploaded songs. If you were to download the songs (after deleting your copy), you'd lose out in terms of bitrate for those songs greater than 256 (and win on saving storage space). Similarly, any songs less than 256 would win in terms of quality if matched and lose in terms of space needed.
Apple limits you to 25,000 songs that were not purchased from the store. Since they only upload a max of 256 AAC - that limits their storage commitment but there's no set size restriction other than max of 200 MB per track or 2 hours per track.