How to Unprotect iTunes Songs in 2024 [Full Guide]

It’s not wired that even you have purchased iTunes songs from the store, you are still unavailable to download them for streaming outside iTunes platform. Why?

The fundamental reason stopping people from playing iTunes songs flexibly originates from the Digital Rights Management, we also call it DRM, which is a sort of streaming media protection technology utilized to protect the copyright of the on-sale songs in iTunes Store.

Nevertheless, this brings great inconvenience for those who want a more controllable way to enjoy iTunes songs. Is there any way to unprotect iTunes songs for personal usage? This post will provide the full guide to you.

Unprotect iTunes Songs via TuneFab iTunes Music Converter (HOT)

When you figure out the core issue preventing you from downloading iTunes songs for streaming outside the player, you know the essential solution to bypass this obstacle – to remove DRM from the encrypted iTunes songs. Accordingly, you need a reliable DRM removal program, and TuneFab iTunes Music Converter can be your rational choice.

TuneFab iTunes Music Converter provides an outstanding DRM removal function to assist the iTunes songs’ unprotection process and get DRM-free songs for offline streaming. It can automatically detect your iTunes Library once launching the software.  Furthermore, the audio encoders of great popularity and high compatibility such as MP3, M4A, AU, and more are supported to export the songs, facilitating more convenient music enjoyment outside the iTunes Player.

For the sound quality, TuneFab iTunes Music Converter will retain lossless condition to store them locally. Meanwhile, the program also allows people to customize the advanced parameters and ID3 information before proceeding the conversion. TuneFab iTunes Music Converter can speed up the conversion of a batch of songs up to 10X faster!

When getting a full overview of TuneFab iTunes Music Converter, in the following, we will walk through the detailed manipulation to unprotect iTunes songs by virtue of it utilizing only several easy procedures. Please scroll down and continue reading.

Step 1. Run both TuneFab iTunes Music Converter and iTunes

First, install TuneFab iTunes Music Converter and iTunes on your computer. You need to make sure you have updated iTunes to the latest version and the iTunes Music you want to download has been saved in the iTunes Library.

Step 2. Select Encrypted iTunes Songs

In the Library of TuneFab iTunes Music Converter, select the playlist and protected iTunes songs on iTunes library you wish to remove DRM encryption from to realize limitation-free offline streaming. Simply check the boxes right in front of the song titles to determine the selection.

Choose Apple Music Tracks to Convert

Step 3. Configure Output Settings

Please move down to the Output Settings module. Here, you can select the Output Format and customize other settings like “Codec”, “Bitrate”, “SampleRate” and “Channels”, to personalize the output parameters for exporting the iTunes songs. What’s more, under “Metadata” section, you can also set edit the ID3 tags freely.

Edit Apple Music Metadata

Step 4. Unprotect iTunes Songs and Save Them Offline

Eventually, tap the Convert button to initiate the conversion and MuConvert Apple Music Converter will start unprotecting the songs for you.

Converting Apple Music

With 10X faster speed, the conversion will be completed swiftly. You can access the protection-free iTunes songs by turning to Finished module and tap the View Output File button, then the output folder will be opened.

Finish Converting Apple Music

How to Unprotect iTunes Music on iTunes (Official Way)

Replacing of utilizing a third-party program, iTunes still leaves the official ways for people to unprotect iTunes Music. Please note that the following two methods released by the official would be a bit complicated, and you may not be able to proceed them under any circumstance.

Burn iTunes Songs to CD with iTunes

The first official method you can try to unprotect iTunes songs is to burn them to CD in iTunes and convert back to the digital audio files. Through copying to CD, the encrypted added on iTunes songs will be removed, so when the songs are ripped again multimedia files, they are not protected anymore. Here are the procedures you can follow to realize the iTunes songs unprotection.

1. Insert a blank CD to the computer, then launch iTunes.

2. Turn to File >> New Playlist to name and create a new playlist for moving all the iTunes songs you wish to unprotect them.

3. Right click the playlist after adding the songs, subsequently, select to Burn Playlist to Disc.

4. Choose Audio CD option and proceed the burning process by tapping the Burn button.

5. When the iTunes songs are converted to CD, eject the CD and rip the songs back to your computer again.

6. Return back to iTunes after inserting the CD, and you ought to go to Edit >> Preferences >> General for selecting the Import Settings option.

7. Eventually, click on the Yes button and the iTunes songs will be ripped to your computer in unprotected status.

Burn iTunes Music to CD iTunes

Unlock iTunes Music Through iTunes Match

Actually, Apple has brought the DRM-free iTunes Plus to encode iTunes songs in free status today. When you get the old iTunes songs with DRM encryption, you can try upgrading your account to iTunes Match and update the songs to the encryption-free status. By registering the iTunes Match service, you only need to go to iTunes Store for filling the billing information to process the purchase. After upgrading to iTunes Match, by following the manipulation below and you can easily unprotect iTunes songs within the program.

1. Run iTunes and sign in with the Apple ID that has been subscribed to iTunes Match service.

2. Turn to My Music module and select the songs to upgrade to unprotected status.

3. You ought to delete them from the library.

4. Subsequently, click on the iTunes Store tab for accessing the purchased music you want to unprotect.

5. Directly tap the iCloud icon to re-download them, then the iTunes Music can be saved to your iTunes Library without DRM encryption again.

Unlock iTunes Music iTunes Match

FAQs about Removing DRM from iTunes Songs

Before ending the post, here also collects two most-frequently-asked question raised by many people. They may help you better understand DRM encryption.

What is DRM?

The full name of DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. As mentioned, this is a technology mean utilized for encrypting the streaming media, preventing illegal proposed in abusing the content, in that leading to the great loss of the original authors or companies. Therefore, for the DRM removal action, you can only process it for fulfilling personal usage, otherwise, you may easily be accused of copyright infringement.

How to identify whether songs have DRM protection or not?

The protection status of the songs will be displayed in the file information. Simply by checking the song information, you will know whether it is under encryption or not.

Conclusion

Even you still have a batch of protected iTunes songs, the provided methods in this post can help you unprotect them without complicated manipulation, especially utilizing TuneFab iTunes Music Converter. Through unlocking them to encryption-free status, your music journey can be even more colorful and convenient.