Among iTunes Match’s more intriguing features is its ability to upgrade all of their matched music to 256Kbps. While iTunes doesn’t provide a push-button way to do this (yet), it is nevertheless quite possible. Here’s how it’s done.
Before you do anything, I’d advise you to back up your entire iTunes library, just in case. Once you’re all backed up, the first thing you’ll need to do is create a Smart Playlist with some custom settings. Macworld provides instructions for how to do this:
Create a Smart Playlist with the following attributes:
– Bit Rate is less than 256kbps
– Media Kind is Music
– Any of the following are true: (to create this conditional, option-click on the plus button in the Smart Playlist window) iCloud status is Matched, iCloud status is Purchased.
This creates a list of all your low-bit-rate files that are upgradeable—namely, ones iTunes Match has deemed Matched or Purchased.
Now that you have your Smart Playlist, simple press Command-A, then press Option-Delete (and make sure you do not select the box that says “also remove from iCloud”). This will remove all of the songs from iTunes.
Now, just select all the files once more, right-click any song, and click download. It may take quite a while to download your songs, depending on the number, and once iTunes has finished downloading all of your updated tunes, you’re good to go!
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