3 ms·

Two years after I moved countries, my credit card expired from my home country, so I wanted to use my new UK card, which requires changing your Apple ID country

Two years after I moved countries, my credit card expired from my home country, so I wanted to use my new UK card, which requires changing your Apple ID country. Changing your Apple ID country requires cancelling all your subscriptions, including Apple Music, which deleted my entire music collection (even my previously uploaded iTunes Match library). When faced with the prospect of starting from scratch, i just moved to Spotify.

cassianoleal 5y ago
Why not just download the songs from iTunes Match, then reupload after the switch?
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  My fault, I just didn't think about the process that much - I wasn't thinking about "cancelling Apple Music", more about just changing card/countries. I figured it would keep my library around, just deactivated. I actually did end up attempting to restore backups where i had downloaded everything, but as soon as I signed in with my account it just deleted everything from my local library again. I had been using windows more and more and I didn't care so I switched to Spotify and am better for it.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Man, that sounds like it would work, but what an annoying workaround for a stupid problem on their side - which I guess has to do with music licensing in different jurisdictions. Makes me think of this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVZFm7P0CQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVZFm7P0CQ I was just going to make this comment, but it's funny how stuff "in the cloud" has jurisdictions. I'm reminded of a Saudi Arabian guy I sat next to on a plane from Austria to Turkey. He couldn't get iTunes on his iPad to play stuff because... he was in the wrong region. Serves him (and his girlfriend) right, they came on board the plane as the last 2 people carrying six large shopping bags as carry-ons.
fumblebee 5y ago
I also had to change my Apple ID country once — the system blocked me because I had credit left on my account after applying a gift card. The amount remaining on my account? 4 cents.
- chewz 5y ago
  I had the same problem with remaining 50 uen moving country from Japan to Europe. But call to Apple Support solved the problem..
benhurmarcel 5y ago
For the record, changing country on Spotify is fairly easy. You need to cancel your subscription and wait for your account to be a free one, then change your country and restart a new subscription. You don’t lose anything because free accounts keep the same data.
- Flimm 5y ago
  On Spotify, there is some music that is only available in some countries. But it's a small fraction of the music, probably less than 0.1%. When switching countries, those songs will be kept in your playlists even if unplayable, IIRC.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
When changing country on iCloud, did you lose all your purchases (apart from subscriptions)? Like books, apps, movies…
- greghinch 5y ago
  I lost some but not most of my movies. Same for apps. Music was the worst, but on Apple Music so not purchases (just had to re-add a lot of things to my library). It has to do with how the individual content (film, app, song) is licensed. If the same content has a separate license in the new country, it won’t carry over. Also note this means it will depend on the two countries you are moving between (ie. I went US > UK, and I would guess there is a lot more licensing crossover between these two countries, whereas two others may not have so much).
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    And this is why I flat-out will not buy digital content unless: 1. It's DRM-Free. 2. I can remove the DRM. (All iTunes movies released prior to 2020 fall into this category.) 3. It's cheap enough that I can treat it like a rental; I fully expect to loose access after a few years and anything longer is a bonus.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  No. The only thing I lost was my entire music library. All other purchases remained, from what I can tell.

cassianoleal 5y ago

Why not just download the songs from iTunes Match, then reupload after the switch?

madeofpalk 5y ago
My fault, I just didn't think about the process that much - I wasn't thinking about "cancelling Apple Music", more about just changing card/countries. I figured it would keep my library around, just deactivated. I actually did end up attempting to restore backups where i had downloaded everything, but as soon as I signed in with my account it just deleted everything from my local library again. I had been using windows more and more and I didn't care so I switched to Spotify and am better for it.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Man, that sounds like it would work, but what an annoying workaround for a stupid problem on their side - which I guess has to do with music licensing in different jurisdictions. Makes me think of this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVZFm7P0CQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVZFm7P0CQ I was just going to make this comment, but it's funny how stuff "in the cloud" has jurisdictions. I'm reminded of a Saudi Arabian guy I sat next to on a plane from Austria to Turkey. He couldn't get iTunes on his iPad to play stuff because... he was in the wrong region. Serves him (and his girlfriend) right, they came on board the plane as the last 2 people carrying six large shopping bags as carry-ons.

fumblebee 5y ago

I also had to change my Apple ID country once — the system blocked me because I had credit left on my account after applying a gift card. The amount remaining on my account? 4 cents.

chewz 5y ago
I had the same problem with remaining 50 uen moving country from Japan to Europe. But call to Apple Support solved the problem..

benhurmarcel 5y ago

For the record, changing country on Spotify is fairly easy. You need to cancel your subscription and wait for your account to be a free one, then change your country and restart a new subscription. You don’t lose anything because free accounts keep the same data.

Flimm 5y ago
On Spotify, there is some music that is only available in some countries. But it's a small fraction of the music, probably less than 0.1%. When switching countries, those songs will be kept in your playlists even if unplayable, IIRC.

benhurmarcel 5y ago

When changing country on iCloud, did you lose all your purchases (apart from subscriptions)? Like books, apps, movies…

greghinch 5y ago
I lost some but not most of my movies. Same for apps. Music was the worst, but on Apple Music so not purchases (just had to re-add a lot of things to my library). It has to do with how the individual content (film, app, song) is licensed. If the same content has a separate license in the new country, it won’t carry over. Also note this means it will depend on the two countries you are moving between (ie. I went US > UK, and I would guess there is a lot more licensing crossover between these two countries, whereas two others may not have so much).
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  And this is why I flat-out will not buy digital content unless: 1. It's DRM-Free. 2. I can remove the DRM. (All iTunes movies released prior to 2020 fall into this category.) 3. It's cheap enough that I can treat it like a rental; I fully expect to loose access after a few years and anything longer is a bonus.
madeofpalk 5y ago
No. The only thing I lost was my entire music library. All other purchases remained, from what I can tell.