Following up on my recent frustrations with the new iTunes Match service having a 25,000 song limit on library size, Macworld has a quick, and obvious band-aid solution: Create two separate libraries. One main library with all of your content, and then one new library with only the 25,000 songs you want to have matched.

This will give you access to those 25,000 songs on your other iCloud compatible devices, however I think it’s only a partial, half assed solution. Creating two libraries fragments your whole iTunes media universe, and will create unnecessary complexity down the road. More database maintenance, keeping them in sync, and constantly picking which to work from.

I think if Apple plans on keeping their 25,000 song limit, they should allow it work with larger libraries, and use a specific playlist as the “iTunes Match Playlist” – only match songs in this playlist, up to the specified limit. That way, uses with large libraries can still use iTunes Match, but with only a portion of their music, without fragmenting into multiple library databases.

The other possible, more “businessy” solution to this would be for apple to offer tiered pricing based on library size. 25,000 songs for $25/year, 50,000 songs for $50/year, and so on. Especially if I’m able to replace all of my lower bitrate tracks with 256kbps AAC files, I’d be fine paying $50, or more like $75/year to upgrade all my tracks and then access them all from everywhere.

Dealing with iTunes Match’s 25,000 Track Limit on Macworld