How to get new music notifications in Apple Music

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new music notifications
Never miss new releases from your favorite artists again.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You may have seen a notification from Apple Music at some point. It popped up, told you about a new album from a favorite artist, and you thought, “Thanks Apple Music! That’s great news.” Finally, you thought to yourself, this is a machine doing what machines are supposed to do. Then maybe you clicked on that notification, and the Music app launched, but didn’t go to the artist or album. Or perhaps you dismissed the alert, and when you opened the Music app later, you were confused because you couldn’t find the notification anywhere.

Now, Apple has (maybe) fixed this problem. Instead of just plain old lock-screen notifications, the Music app will now show you new music alerts inside the app itself. Here’s how to switch them on.

In-app Apple Music notifications

Open up the Music app, and tap on the For You tab. Then, tap on your avatar icon at the top right. Then, tap on Notifications. You’ll end up at this screen:

Customize your Apple Music notifications here.
Customize your Apple Music notifications here.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Pay attention to the top two options. The first, New Music, will switch on alerts for new music, as you’d expect. If you’ve been getting lock-screen notifications for new music, you probably have this toggled on already. The second option, Show in Library, is the one that enables banners inside the Music app itself.

In my opinion, this is far more useful than just getting the odd new music alert. If I’m in the Music app, I’m looking for something to listen to, which makes it the perfect time to pop up an alert about something I might like. It’s kind of the opposite of those app-review pop-ups, which also appear when you open an app, only in that case, if you opened an app to do a task, then probably the very last thing you wanted to do was to drop that task and rate/review the app.

What if you miss new music notifications?

These alerts are a definite improvement, so long as Apple actually makes them useful by tracking all new releases from artists you like. But there’s another way to get this information.

Apple Music's New Releases section can be a treasure trove.
Apple Music’s New Releases section can be a treasure trove.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Go back to the Music app, and open up the For You tab again. Then, scroll all the way to the bottom, and you’ll find the New Releases section. Either swipe to see the most recent of these, or tap Show All to explore further. I was very happy to find a whole new album from Nicolas Jaar in mine.

The success of this feature all depends on how well Apple keeps up with the news. On the other hand, if you don’t want these notifications, then this how-to serves as a perfectly good guide to switching them off.

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