How to release music on Apple Music

To release music on Apple Music as an independent artist, you send it through a distributor. Apple doesn't take uploads from artists. It works with labels and distributors, and those partners deliver your audio, cover art and release details to Apple Music and the iTunes Store in the format Apple requires.

This guide covers how that works, what Apple asks for, and what to set up in Apple Music for Artists once your music is live. For the steps every release shares, start with how to release music.

You release on Apple Music through a distributor

Apple's own guidance on distributing your music with Apple Music says it works directly with labels and distributors, and that independent artists and smaller labels should work with an Apple-preferred distributor. Apple then talks to your distributor about any problem with your metadata or files, and the distributor handles your streaming, sales and royalty reporting.

Apple names what sets its preferred distributors apart: a low rejection rate, analytics, trend data from Apple Music, and support for Spatial Audio, motion artwork, detailed release credits and lyrics. The list is in Apple's distributor directory.

The same distributor usually sends your release to every other store too, so picking one for Apple Music is picking one for the whole release. Releasing on every platform covers where else it goes.

What Apple Music needs from you

Your distributor puts the release together, but the material comes from you. Apple's checks fall into three parts.

The audio

Send your highest-quality stereo master, usually a WAV or FLAC file at the resolution it was mastered in. If you have a Dolby Atmos mix, ask your distributor whether it delivers Spatial Audio to Apple. If the song is already out somewhere, keep its ISRC so the recording stays the same recording in every store.

The cover art

Apple's cover art guidelines ask for a JPG, PNG or GIF that's a perfect square, at least 4000 × 4000 pixels. Your distributor may set its own size, but a large square file keeps the art sharp everywhere. Apple also refuses:

• social media handles, email addresses, websites or logos;
• prices, years or dates, and barcodes;
• blurry, pixelated, tilted or cropped images, unless that's the intended look;
• references to CDs, vinyl or other physical formats;
• a parental advisory logo on a release that isn't explicit.

Your artist name and the release title are fine on the cover. How to make an album cover covers the design, and the album cover checker tests your file.

The metadata

Apple splits music metadata into three kinds: descriptive (artist names, primary and featured, song titles, the release date, track numbers), performance rights (everyone who worked on the music, so they're credited and paid) and secondary (genre and mood). Apple's advice on genre is that less is more: pick the one that fits and don't add others to reach more listeners. Song credits and metadata goes through every field.

Before release day: pre-adds and timing

An Apple Music pre-add lets fans add an upcoming release to their library or a playlist, and they're told the moment it's out. Apple says releases with pre-adds saw significantly more listens than those without. Your distributor sets it up, so it works only once the release is with Apple, which is one reason to send your music weeks before the day. How early to send your music covers the timing.

Spotify has a public pitch form for its editors. Apple Music's editors mostly hear about new music from labels and distributors, so what you tell your distributor about the song, its story, its sound and the plan around it, is what travels with it.

After release: Apple Music for Artists

Apple Music for Artists is Apple's free app and website for artists. According to Apple's guide to claiming your page, your music has to be live on Apple Music for at least five business days before you can claim it. You need the primary artist role on a release to claim the page, so a featured appearance doesn't count.

Once you're in, you can:

• see your plays and listeners, and where they are;
• add an artist image, which Apple uses on both Apple Music and Shazam after a review of up to five business days;
• write a bio and customize your artist page;
• add your team, from a manager to a label rep.

Lyrics come through your distributor too. Apple Music promotion covers how to grow your listeners there after release.

Apple Music with Audora

Every Audora release goes to Apple Music, alongside Spotify, TikTok, YouTube and 140+ stores, and into the databases radio stations, cars and song recognition read. Audora is the label on your release, and the masters and the ISRCs stay yours.

• A pitch with every release. Every release goes out with a pitch for the people who market it to the stores, written from your answers about the song.
• A date with room. Audora dates your release to give the editors time.
• Art and files to spec. Cover art made to the stores' spec, and the cover, the audio and the credits checked before you send, with the words on your cover matched to the release's title and artist name.
• Your own page. Link your Apple Music artist page and the release lands on it, even when another artist shares your name.
• The credits. Who wrote it, played on it and produced it, delivered with the release.

The exact steps for your release are in your account, each dated from the release day you pick. Audora keeps adjusting them, adding, dropping and retiming steps, as it learns what works best for its artists. What every track gets shows the full release.