If you made it to the very end of yesterday’s keynote (not easy, given the stream stuttering and Mandarin overdub), you got the chance to watch U2 perform live and Tim Cook give away the new U2 album to all comers.
Finding the album can be a bit tricky, though. If you search your library, chances are you won’t find it. And if you locate the album in the iTunes store, it’ll be marked as purchased, with no obvious way to download it.
The trick is to go to the iTunes store home page and click the “Purchased” quick link in the upper right corner. You should see the album there. Click on the “download from the cloud” icon in the upper right corner. That should do it.
If you have iTunes in the Cloud or iTunes Match turned on, you should see it in your library, but I heard from a number of people yesterday who weren’t seeing it even with those options on. One person, however, had iTunes in the Cloud turned off, and it appeared as soon as he turned it on.
There’s also a direct link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/songs-of-innocence/id915794155
It wasn’t showing up in my iTunes Match, so I downloaded it from “Purchased” to my Mac and let Match scan, and that made it available on all my devices.
Yes, I heard from many people yesterday who weren’t seeing it with different settings on. You need to update iTunes Match (from the Store menu) for it to be added, in most cases.
Directions worked perfect for me – Thank You!!!
I’m in the boat with those who had iTunes Match and iCloud on yet didn’t get the album auto-downloaded. This worked for me. Thanks!
It wasn’t listed in my music library right after I started up Itunes, but maybe four or five minutes later it just showed up there and i could download it like any other album you’ve bought but not put on the computer you’re currently using.
Thank you for explaining this. The directions in iTunes were vague. I was going to my purchased items in my account and in the left nav and also am using iTunes Match but could not see it. I was able to download from the Purchased quick link you described.
How do I get it from iOS iTunes?
I found that I needed to update my iTunes > Preferences > Store and ensure ‘Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases’