A release with a date in the future gets its page straight away, and that page asks fans to be told when it lands. On the day itself the same address becomes the listen page, so a link you shared weeks ago keeps working and never has to be replaced.
Put up a release that is not out yet
- Open Music and press Add a release.
- Give TAP the barcode your distributor gave you. A release that is not out yet is on no platform, so TAP finds nothing under it and says so; that is the normal answer here.
- Press Fill it in, then give the release its title, its kind, its date and its artwork.
- Save. The release shows first on your music page, with the date it is out.
The barcode is what lets TAP find the release on the platforms the moment it lands, and what puts it in a fan's library on the day. Press 'I have not got one yet' if your distributor has not given you one, and fill it in as soon as they do: without a barcode the page still works and fans are still mailed, but there is nothing to write to their library and no platform button to send them to.
A release you would rather nobody saw yet: hide it. A hidden release takes no pre-saves and answers 404 to everyone, you included, until you show it again.
What a fan does
They open the release page and leave an address, or connect Apple Music. An email pre-save needs confirmation for that release: TAP mails a link, and the fan opens it and presses Confirm. A browser that has just proved that same address can confirm directly. Opening a mailed link alone does not confirm anything. Apple Music checks the connected account before accepting the pre-save.
A fan who stopped TAP's mail gets no link: the form writes nothing to them, whatever address is typed into it.
On the day the release is out, TAP saves it to the library of every fan who connected one. Then every fan with a confirmed address gets one mail for the release, saying what happened:
- Saved: it is in their library.
- Not saved: TAP could not write it. When their streaming account needs connecting again, the mail says so. Otherwise it sends them to the release page to save it there.
- Address only: it is out, and the release page has it on every platform.
A fan who stopped TAP's mail, or whose address bounced, gets no mail on the day.
Apple calls this pre-add. Either way TAP saves the release after it is out, through the fan's own account, and never through a platform's own pre-release mechanism.
What you see, and what you do not
Stats shows, per release, how many confirmed pre-saves are waiting, how many are saved and how many could not be saved. The Coming up band in the Music editor carries one pre-save count per release that is not out yet. An email request still waiting for confirmation does not count. You never see a fan's address, and there is no way to export one. That is deliberate: fans give TAP an address to hear about your releases, not to join a list that can be handed on.
A fan who also asks to hear about your next releases becomes a follower. That is a separate press on their side, and it is theirs to undo at any time: Followers.
When a fan has to connect again
An authorization from a streaming platform runs out after a while. When that happens TAP does not quietly fail: the release-day mail asks the fan to connect again where there is an address to write to, and their own page says which library needs it.