Apple Music is known for its high-quality audio playback and features like spatial audio, Hi-res lossless audio, and more.
The high-quality music playback comes with a big drawback. It’s the accumulation of cache files.
To enable smooth music playback, many cache files get generated every time you stream music on the platform. This grows over time and eats up a lot of storage space on your iPhone, Android device, or Mac.
Clearing Apple Music will help delete these files and free up storage.
In this article, let’s see how to clear the Apple Music cache on iPhone, Android, Windows, and Mac.
How to clear Apple Music cache on iPhone?
Clearing Apple Music cache on iPhone is not as simple or straightforward as other platforms like Android, Mac or Windows.
In short, there is no direct option to delete Apple Music cache on the iPhone. But there are two ways to go about it.
- Disable and enable Sync Library
- Reinstall the Apple Music app
Reinstall Apple Music to delete cache
The easiest way to clear the Apple Music cache on iOS is to uninstall and reinstall the app.
Unlike Android, the iPhone does not have the option to clear the app cache. But reinstalling the app should clear the cache and free up the space.
Follow the steps below to uninstall Apple Music to delete the cache.
On your iPhone, tap and hold the Apple Music app logo.
Tap Remove App.
On the popup that appears, tap Delete App.
Now that you uninstalled Apple Music from the iPhone, the next is to install it again.
Open the App Store.
Search for Apple Music.
Tap the Get button to install it on your iPhone again.
You have successfully cleared the Apple Music cache by uninstalling it.
Turn off and on Sync Library
The second method to clear the Apple Music cache on iPhone is to turn the sync library off and on again.
Open Settings.
Scroll down and tap Music.
Tap the Sync Library toggle to turn it off.
Once turned off, tap it again to turn it on.
This should clear the Apple Music cache on your iPhone.
How to clear Apple Music cache on Android?
Clearing the Apple Music cache on Android is straightforward and hassle-free when compared with the iPhone.
All Android devices come with an option to clear individual app cache in a single click.
Follow the steps below to delete Apple Music cache on Android.
On your Android phone, open Settings.
Tap Apps & notifications/apps/manage apps. Depending on the Android skin, the option name differs.
From the list of installed apps, select Apple Music.
Tap Storage and Cache.
Tap the Clear Cache option.
You have successfully cleared Apple Music on your Android smartphone.
The steps are pretty much the same for clearing the Apple Music cache on Android tablets as well.
Cache playback limit on Apple Music for Android
Apple Music for Android comes with an option called Cache Playback Limit that allows users to limit the maximum space the app can use to store cache files.
This will ensure Apple Music does not use too much space on your Android device.
Follow the steps below to enable it:
- Open Apple Music on your Android smartphone or tablet
- Tap the three-dots icon on the top right corner and tap Settings.
- Scroll down and tap Playback Cache.
- On the popup that appears, select Playback cache size from 0 MB to 5 GB.
200 MB or 500 MB is recommended as it will not take up too much space on your phone.
How to clear Apple Music cache on Mac?
If you use Apple Music on a Mac, it is possible to clear the cache as well.
There isn’t any dedicated option to clear the cache in the Apple Music app for Mac. But you can delete the Apple Music cache folder from the Finder.
Open Finder.
Click Go.
Select Go To Folder option.
Depending on your macOS version, enter the following folder path and hit enter.
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Music
or
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.itunes
Once you are inside the com.apple.Music or com.apple.iTunes folder, you need to locate two folders – fsCachedData and SubscriptionPlayCache.
Select both folders, right click, and click Move to Bin.
These two folders store the Apple Music cache files on your Mac. Deleting them should clear the cache instantly.
How to clear Apple Music cache on Windows?
Clearing the Apple Music cache is the easiest on Windows.
To delete the Apple Music cache files on Windows, you only need to navigate to the folder below and delete the content inside. So let’s see how.
Press the Windows key + R to open Run.
Enter the following folder directory path – C:\Users\”USERNAME”\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\
Replace the USERNAME with your Windows username and hit enter.
It will now open the iTunes folder on Windows Explorer.
Find and delete the fsCachedData and SubscriptionPlayCache folders.
Best practices
As you use Apple Music daily, the cache file size grows over time.
As Apple Music offers features like lossless audio, a single music size will be around 50MB. If you play multiple such songs, it will drastically increase the cache size on the device.
Cache files are known to slow down the device and consume a lot of space. So, it is recommended that you clear your Apple Music cache once in a while.
When you feel like Apple Music is taking too much space for cache files, follow the steps above to delete the cache files once in a while, and you should be good to go.
What’s Next?
Clearing the Apple Music cache once in a while is a good practice. Many people don’t realize how much space Apple Music cache files take on their phone.
Clearing the cache makes the device faster and helps save some storage space as well.
Clearing Apple Music on Windows, Android, and Mac is straightforward. But as for the iPhone, you need to either uninstall and reinstall the app or turn off and on the sync library option.