How to: Change your Artist Image with Apple Music for Artists beta

One of the long requested features for Apple Music by artists has been the ability to quickly and easily change bio/profile photos – the main artist image that shows up when someone searches their name on iTunes or Apple Music and also at the top of their artist/catalog page.

Now, Apple’s recently launched “Apple Music for Artists” beta has been updated to allow exactly that. The new feature comes alongside Apple’s refreshed and enlarged artist images that appear in iOS 12 set for release this fall.

Here’s how it works…

Some labels and distributors have had the ability to change the artist image via manual submission to Apple, but, unlike Spotify, Apple previously didn’t have a way for artists to do it themselves. That meant lots of independent artists simply got Apple’s default microphone icon in search and no image on their profile page.

Now the still in-beta Apple Music for Artists has a new artist image submission feature under the “Manage” tab….

From here artists (or anyone with permission to manage that artist’s Apple Music for Artists account) can easily submit a new artist image for review. Apple notes that the specs must be at least 2400×2400.

Once you upload an image, Apple allows you to adjust the crop and gives you a preview of how it will look in the various places it appears within Apple Music.

When you’re happy with the crop, you can submit the artwork to Apple for review.

Apple doesn’t indicate how long on average the review process might take, but it’s nice that artists now have a way to upload their own artist images and also change them whenever they want without having to go through a third-party.

First launched earlier this year, the new Apple Music for Artists beta is a platform that allows artists and their representatives to view detailed analytics related to their music and fans. The new artist image upload functionality is the first feature outside of listener data that the new dashboard is providing and it’s something that puts Apple Music one step closer to Spotify’s platform for artists. Notably Spotify’s platform recently launched the ability for artists to directly submit unreleased music to its editors for consideration on its editorial playlists. Spotify’s service also allows artists to edit their actual bio, something that Apple has long pulled from aggregators making difficult for independent artists to update or edit.

On iOS 12, the artist images are notably larger and now feature a play button (as pictured at the top of this article from early beta screenshots).

While the Apple Music for Artists beta is still limited to certain users, artists with music already on Apple Music can sign up and request access to the free service on Apple’s website today.

If you’re an independent artist looking to get your music on Apple Music, check out our guide on How to get your content on Apple Music and manage your ‘Connect’ artist profile page.

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