If the collection of your digital music is in a mess, what can you do to delete duplicates, the renamed files or other useless data? Lots of software have the clean-up function to help you to finish this task without any hassle. A crusade of purifying our iTunes Match Metadata will be held by using the effective methods in this article. Just through simple operations, your iTunes Match will get back on track and keep well-organized, which helps you use iTunes Match in ease and high efficiency.

Part 1: What is iTunes Match

iTunes Match is one of Apple’s subscription service, the whole music collection can be uploaded to iCloud Music Library via iTunes Match, the music can be streamed and downloaded on other devices with same Apple ID. Therefore, you can get access to your all music on the compatible devices easily. You just need to pay $24.99 per year, approximately 100,000 songs can be matched or uploaded to iCloud music library from your libraries.

As we know what you purchased from iTunes Store, App Store or iBookstore has been kept a copy by the iCloud storage service of Apple. But, how about the songs you download from other places or the CDs? iTunes Match offers the matching service to make most songs from iTunes library kept in iCloud as a copy. Songs from iTunes Store can be encoded in AAC format via matching by iTunes, AAC format offers high-quality version of music on your computer.

If the song can not be found by iTunes Match, it can be uploaded automatically in original quality to iCloud from iTunes library. The songs encoded as the format of ALAC or WAV or AIFF can be transcoded by iTunes into the AAC format and then they can be uploaded to iCloud.

To make a subscription to iTunes Match, you can click on “iTunes Match” on the top of right link column of Store home page, then click on “Add This Computer”. Next, type into your Apple ID and passcode by following the instructions. Finally, click to agree on the terms and conditions of iTunes Match.

Though the matching service just costs several minutes in finding your songs version in iTunes Store, the unavailable songs from iTunes Store takes a few hours in uploading. The benefit that you can gain from iTunes Match is that all your songs can be downloaded in availability, iTunes Match can be accessible on different Apple devices.
Once you launch iTunes Match, iTunes Match Library can be updated automatically by iTunes whenever the new songs have been imported. You can go through the function “Turn Off iTunes Match” in the “Store” option to disable iTunes Match. But if you want to turn it on, select the option “Turn On iTunes Match” in the “Store”. You also can choose the option “Update iTunes Match” from “Store” to make iTunes Match updated with new songs at any time.

When your songs are stored by using iTunes Match, they can be played like the way they are played in iTunes Library by click on the button “Play”. Then you can stream the music on your device from iCloud. Music in iTunes Match library and iTunes library will be displayed together by default. To make the music hidden in iTunes Match, you can go through the option “View>Hide Music” in Cloud. To make this music show up again in iTunes Match, just click on the option “View> Show Music” in Cloud.

Also, the songs can be downloaded to iTunes Library by choosing the tab of browsing the song and then click on iCloud icon beside the song in the column of “iCloud Download.

Part 2: How to Cleanup iTunes Match metadata

Method 1: How to Cleanup iTunes Match metadata via iTunes

As iTunes Match can match the songs in iTunes library and make the songs played in the same way as iTunes library. The way to clean up iTunes Match metadata is like cleaning up iTunes library accordingly. iTunes itself offers the solution to perform the clean-up task, below we will teach you how to clean up iTunes library by using iTunes.

1. Open iTunes on your computer. Click on “File” in the menu bar, then click on the option “Show Duplicate Items”. After that, all of the duplicates will be listed in iTunes library. Whatever the individual songs or all duplicates, they all can be removed from iTunes library. Additionally, there is an option which is able to sort out the songs in line with the various kinds of filters including the album, the artist and the bit rate.

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2. Most of the available songs from music library can be extracted by iTunes in an automatic way. But, iTunes probably cannot find the artwork for some albums. If such album can be found in iTunes library, you can choose the option of “Get Album Artwork” by right click on it. Usually, the missing album artwork issue can be fixed by iTunes automatically. If nothing can be successfully done by iTunes, the album art can be added by yourself. You can search your album art on computer or go through the internet. Click on the option “Album” and choose “Get Info” to import album art. In this step, click the tab “Info” and import the image to this box by dragging and dropping. If you would like to make the missing information added to the available songs in music library, iTunes will help you to finish this task in an easy way. The information of track or the album can be edited by right click on the song or the album, then choose the option “Get Info”.

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3. Various kinds of fields can be found to edit in the Info tab. Now the related information about the track like Artist Name, Year and Track Number and more can be added or altered here.
4. The compilations in iTunes library can be managed well via iTunes itself. Music library can be cleaned up in an effective way from iTunes with no metadata changed, this task can be completed because of the available compilations function in iTunes. To perform this operation, you can choose Get Info by right click on album or track. Then you will be directed to the tab “Options” and the option “Part of compilation” must be set to “Yes”. By this step, each track or the album will be sorted out as the separate one in compilation, where the redundancy will be deleted in iTunes library automatically.

Method 2: How to Cleanup iTunes Match metadata using Tunes Cleaner

You can use a helpful third-party tool -Leawo Leawo Tunes Cleaner to clean up iTunes Match metadata. This integrated iTunes cleanup software comes up with multiple functions, such as cleaning up iTunes Library, detecting and deleting the duplicates in iTunes, getting album work in iTunes and getting music tags downloaded and added. Music information even can be completed by editing music tags and the incomplete music file can be saved for fixing in the future. The cleanup has no limit in iTunes music library. The local music in MP3 format can also be cleaned up by iTunes cleaner. Once the iTunes music library or the local music library can be cleaned up, the music files which have been fixed can be applied to iTunes or the local music folders by one click, then iTunes along with other music libraries can be organized and managed well. Below are the guidance of how to clean up iTunes match metadata by using Tunes Cleaner for your reference.

1. Run Leawo Tunes Cleaner on your computer and click on the entry “Start to clean iTunes”. Then the iTunes Music library will be scanned automatically with this software.

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2. After the scanning is completed, all the unfixed music files will be sorted out for repair. Each file can be checked for repair or you can also repair all the music files by click on the button “Fix All”. During the fixing process, if you want to pause fixing, you can click on the button “Pause”.

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3. After the fixing process is finished, click on “Apply” button to make the fixed music applied to the original library. You also can click on the button “Save Project” to store the unfixed music files to make it fixed in the future.

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Note: The auto music tag adding feature of Leawo Tunes Cleaner has been discontinued. You could use it to add or edit music tags manually.

Extension: Alternative software for iTunes Match metadata cleanup

Cleaning up iTunes Match metadata will help make your iTunes Match well-organized instead of messy. Apart from the iTunes clean up software mentioned above, there are also other clean up software taking a good effect in cleaning up iTunes Match metadata. Here we will list three alternatives as below for you to refer to.
1. Music Cleanup
Tenorshare Music Cleanup is able to satisfy your needs to make your iTunes library well-managed. It has quick search and deletion on the duplicated songs from iTunes library. The mislabeled songs can be fixed automatically, also music tags can be edited manually. The fixed songs can be synced to iTunes or local music library automatically. Moreover, the simple instructions will give you a clear guidance.

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2. TuneUp
This is another music clean up software for iTunes and acts the same as Music Cleanup. It can make the disordered music collection in well organization. iTunes duplicates can be cleaned up and the songs with incorrect information can be fixed. But the user interface of TuneUp is more complicated and this software charges higher.

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3. TidyMyMusic for Mac
This is another substitute for iTunes clean up software. The mislabeled songs can be fixed and the missing album artwork can be downloaded by this software. What’s more, the duplicated music can be removed automatically. It is applicable to Mac OS X or 10.9 Mavericks or 10.8 Mountain Lion or lower.

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