A song was removed from your streaming service — what to do

Catalogues are licensed, licences expire, and one morning the record is greyed out. Here is how to make the music you actually care about permanent.

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Searching the bMusic library across artists, albums and songs

Why records disappear, and why it keeps happening

Nothing on a streaming service is yours. The service licenses a catalogue from rights holders, and those agreements run out, get renegotiated, or are pulled when a label moves distributor or an artist falls out with someone. When that happens the record leaves every playlist that contained it at once, and there is nothing you or the service can do about it.

It is also not rare. Regional licensing means an album can be available in one country and gone in another; remasters replace originals and quietly change track lengths; live albums and soundtracks come and go on the smallest licences of all. If a record matters to you, the streaming copy is the least stable version of it you could have chosen.

The permanent answer is unglamorous and has not changed in twenty years: have the file. Buy the download, or rip the CD you already own. Then the only thing standing between you and the record is a device that plays files — which is the part this page is really about.

Step by step

Making a record permanent

  1. 01

    Get a copy you own

    Buy the download from a store that sells files rather than access, or rip the CD from your own shelf. Lossless if it is offered — FLAC and ALAC both play here — and a good MP3 or AAC if it is not. The point is that the file is yours and nobody can withdraw it.

  2. 02

    Keep the original somewhere that is not the phone

    A folder on a computer, a drive, or your own NAS. The phone is a copy, not the archive — that is what makes it safe to delete an album off the phone to make room, and safe to move to a new phone later.

  3. 03

    Put it on the phone

    Install bMusic, choose Import from Wi-Fi, open the address it shows on your computer and read the code with the camera. Drag the album into the browser and it copies straight across your own network. AirDrop, the Files app, a direct link and your own WebDAV server all work too.

  4. 04

    Give it the details you want to keep

    Tags and artwork come from the file. Anything wrong can be edited in the app and written back into the file itself, so the correction survives being copied to the next device.

  5. 05

    Play it, and keep streaming for everything else

    The two are not in competition. Keep the subscription for finding new things; keep the records that matter as files, where a licensing decision cannot reach them.

This works the same way for a release that was never on streaming at all — a bandcamp download, a live recording, a demo an artist e-mailed you.

What owning the file actually changes

It cannot be withdrawn
A file on your phone does not check a licence. Nothing greys out, and nothing disappears from a playlist because two companies stopped agreeing.
It is the version you chose
Not the remaster, not the edited single, not the regional substitute. The album you bought stays the album you play.
It works with no signal
Aeroplanes, tunnels, basements, other countries. There is no download-for-offline that expires and no re-authorisation when the app has not seen the internet for a month.
The listening history is yours
Play counts and yearly reports are worked out on the device from your own library, rather than being a feature of an account you might one day close.

FAQ

Owning your music: the usual questions

Why did the album disappear from my streaming service?
Almost always a licence. The service’s agreement for that catalogue ended or changed, and the record left every account at once. It sometimes returns; it is not up to you either way.
Is downloading inside a streaming app the same as owning it?
No. Those downloads are cached under the licence — they stop playing when the subscription lapses, when the app is removed, or when the album leaves the catalogue. A file you bought does none of that.
Where can I buy files rather than access?
Plenty of stores still sell downloads, artists sell directly, and the CD you already own can be ripped — a rip of your own disc is a file you own in the most straightforward sense there is.
Do I have to give up streaming?
No, and most people should not. Streaming is very good at finding things. This is about which records you keep once you have found them.
What if I change phones?
Copy the folder to the new one, or turn on iCloud sync so songs, artwork, playlists and play counts move through your own iCloud account. Either way the library is not tied to bMusic staying installed.

Other guides

Play FLAC on an iPhone

The iPhone decodes FLAC and always has. Getting a FLAC file onto it is the part Apple never made easy.

Read the guide

Move a library off Android

Switch to iOS moves your photos and messages. The folder of music files is the part it leaves behind.

Read the guide

Put a ripped CD on an iPhone

You ripped it losslessly on purpose. Getting it onto the phone should not undo that.

Read the guide

Your own music in the car

A tunnel, a data cap or a rural road, and the streaming app stalls. Files on the phone never do.

Read the guide

Lyrics for your own files

Lyrics apps look a song up in a catalogue. The rip, the bootleg and the demo are not in it — so the words have to come from the recording.

Read the guide

Karaoke and practising a part

Take the voice out, move the key, loop the bar you keep missing and slow it down — on a song you own, on the phone.

Read the guide

Bring your own music

Every part of bMusic works for 15 days from the day you install it, with nothing held back. Send one album across and hear it on your own headphones.

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iPhone, iPad and Mac · iOS 18.0 or later · MP3, AAC, M4A, ALAC, FLAC, OPUS, WAV, AIFF