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Is there a way to change the iTunes Store country and still keep the Apple Music library? Preferably in an automated way.

The reason for asking is that the Apple support article on changing the iTunes Store country or region says that your Apple Music library will be lost if changing the country and does not offer any workarounds:

You won’t see the items from your iCloud Music Library that you matched, uploaded, or added from the previous country’s store

I have spent considerable time on building up my music library (adding from Apple Music) and would not like to lose it just because I'm moving to another country.

In my case it is not an option to use multiple Apple IDs or keep using the old iTunes Store country. Device versions are iOS 10 and macOS Sierra.

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  • Can you provide some more context on what you're trying to do and why? It's just that there may be other ways to achieve what you're wanting to. On the other hand, if this is a once off change because you have to change your country moving forward, then tubedogg's answer pretty much sums it up.
    – Monomeeth ♦
    Oct 2, 2016 at 5:38
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    Monomeeth: I made an addition to the question to try to clarify the situation. It is basically about having spent much effort on building a music library (selecting artists, albums and songs) and being forced to lose it just because you move to another country and have to change your iTunes Store accordingly (because you need to access apps specific to your new country).
    – Make Mark
    Oct 2, 2016 at 5:41
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    If you're moving to another country I'd actually phone Apple and explain your situation. They may be able to manually do something. Also, if talking to them doesn't help, it may be worth also logging a case with them online for the iTunes Store. I've seen them manually intervene in various situations. Also, another option is to just keep using your current Apple ID and country for most items and only change to the other Apple ID for the other country if/when what you need is not available with your existing account. Although you'd prefer not to, you'd find you rarely need to swap over.
    – Monomeeth ♦
    Oct 2, 2016 at 5:54
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    Wow, I was surprised to read in the support article you’d lose access to all items in the iCloud Music Library, not just the ones that are not available in the new country. But there’s a fairly recent blog post on “Making My Way Through The iTunes Store's Border Control” which seems to confirm this. The author points out he couldn’t even change countries while having active iTunes Match and Apple Music subscriptions, and that canceling these required contacting Apple Support.
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 2, 2016 at 7:57
  • Any better answers for 2020?
    – fumoboy007
    Mar 16, 2020 at 4:38

5 Answers 5

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In theory if you have a friend who has an iphone and apple music and you both upgrade to iOS 11 then you can follow each other’s apple music playlists then get your friend to save and add your songs and playlists to their device, then on your device switch over app store countries, re subscribe to apple music in the new country and then do the reverse and follow your friends playlists and re add them back to your apple music library.

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    Interesting approach. Has anyone tried this?
    – Make Mark
    Jul 9, 2018 at 15:37
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iCloud Music Library is, as the name implies, a cloud service. Unlike a service running on a local machine which might have the possibility of being overridden when Apple states it can't do something, there is no way to change what happens on their servers. They say it's no longer accessible after a country change, and that's what it means.

If you are changing to a country where you can use Apple Music, any music that you still have can be matched/re-uploaded after you change your country. This may not be ideal, but it's the only way to re-establish your library after a country change.

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    Even though it is a cloud service, I was hoping that there might be a way to export the library (the list of albums and tracks, not the actual music), change the iTunes Store country and then reimport the library as workaround.
    – Make Mark
    Jun 23, 2017 at 2:56
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A pretty detailed write-up of the issues with doing this here:

https://www.jordanmerrick.com/2016/02/itunes-border-control/

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  • Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. We expect answers to be self contained, since if your link goes down, your answer will be useless. Paraphrasing the source and including any relevant information in the answer will ensure it stays relevant
    – nohillside ♦
    Nov 23, 2018 at 12:45
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I was trying to download music the other day and i kept on getting this "Can't change Country/Region after cancel Apple Music membership" which was annoying and after tedious attempts, I tried this instead of going to to iTunes and trying to change the store there, try to download and install a free app and immediately you will be prompted with pop-up that has a Change option. Click it and as soon as the app can download you're home free.

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  • How does this help preserving the Apple Music library? This answer does not seem relevant to the original question, unless I'm mistaken.
    – Make Mark
    Jul 9, 2018 at 15:39
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best advice i can give is have someone who is on the country you was originally on send you an app from the app store via the share feature. once you hit "Get" it will prompt you to "Change the app store to the country you originally was on . Instead of going through that long process. I just did it for myself so i can GUARANTEE IT WORKS!

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    The question was about the Apple Music library, not applications. How is this answer relevant to keeping the Apple Music library while switching countries?
    – Make Mark
    Jul 9, 2018 at 15:37

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