Storage and offline

Your files stay yours. bae never moves, renames, or rewrites them; the question storage answers is only where the playable copy of each release lives: on the device, in your cloud, or both.

Local and in the cloud

Every release is one or the other, chosen at import and changeable any time:

• Local: bae catalogs your files where they are and plays them from there. Nothing is copied. The release’s details sync, so every device shows the album, its tracks, and its cover, but its audio stays on the machine that imported it, and other devices can’t play it.
• In the cloud: the files are encrypted and uploaded to the cloud home. Now every device can play the release, streaming it on demand or downloading it for offline. Your original files are untouched by the upload.

At import, with a cloud home connected, Cloud uploads the new release and Pinned also keeps its files on this device. Later, Move to cloud uploads a local release; bae first checks that every file is unchanged since import, and a file that changed stops the upload. Make local… copies a cloud release’s files into a folder you choose, checks each copy, and plays the release from there; they’re yours again as plain files, and other devices can no longer play it.

Streaming and the cache

Releases in the cloud play everywhere, network permitting: playback streams the file from your cloud, and the bytes are kept in a local cache so the next play is instant and free. The cache manages itself within a budget (20 GB for audio on each device), evicting what you haven’t played when space runs low. Covers and artist images are cached separately, so a big album can’t push your artwork out.

Pinning for offline

Pinning a release downloads all of it and keeps it: pinned music never gets evicted and always plays offline. Pin from the release’s storage sheet or the Storage manager; unpin returns the files to the normal cache, where they remain playable but reclaimable. On the phone, pinned downloads show their progress right in the library.

The Storage manager

The desktop’s Storage manager (⌘0) is the whole picture in one window:

• Every release with its size and state: local, in the cloud, uploading. Filter, sort, select many, act on all of them at once.
• Pinning: pin downloads in flight, pausable, retryable.
• Exports: the export queue. See Exporting.
• Uploads: the sync outbox, with per-release progress, throughput and time remaining, pending deletions, pause and resume.

Deleting

Deleting a release in the cloud removes it from the library and its copies from the cloud home. Deleting a local release removes the catalog entry only. Either way, bae never deletes your own files.