Purchased music disappeared after cancelling Apple Music

Cancelled Apple Music, and then all purchased music disappeared with it on iPhoneSE. We’ve started/stopped Apple Music on the kid’s phone many times but this time the cancellation deleted everything. No clear instructions anywhere on how to get them back. Advice please!

Posted on Oct 19, 2026 8:47 AM

1 reply

Servant of Cats

Level 9 (55,707 points)

Oct 19, 2026 9:07 AM in response to krmercier

When you were a subscriber, did you use the "Sync Library" feature? If so, "purchased" music on the iPhone might have been simply a "Sync Library" copy of purchased music that you had on your Mac.

My understanding is that when you cancel an Apple Music subscription,

Offline listening copies of subscription (rental) songs stop working or get deleted.
Original copies of purchased music (e.g., music that you imported from your own CDs or that you purchased from the iTunes Store) remain intact.
"Sync Library" copies of purchased music stop working or get deleted.

Hopefully, the purchased music on your computer is still intact, and the issue is only with the iPhone. If so, try this:

Do a "manual synchronization" of the iPhone with no music selected on the computer. This will delete all music on the iPhone.
Do another "manual synchronization" of the iPhone, this time with the selection of purchased music you want to load onto the iPhone.

If you have music that you purchased from the iTunes Store (rather than on CD), another option is to re-download that music on the iPhone itself.