iTunes shutting down: What will happen to your music and movie downloads?

'The future of iTunes is not one app but three: Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV,' says Apple's software head

After months of speculation, Apple has finally confirmed the death of iTunes.

In its nearly two-decade history, Apple's most famous app redefined how people listened to music, watched movies and helped usher in the rival of new media genres, like podcasts.

But in 2019 its functionality had become clunky and archaic, as people ditched music libraries and personal playing devices like iPods in favour of instant streaming services.

"The future of iTunes is not one app but three: Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV," Craig Federighi, Apple's head of software, announced at the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday.

The idea is to streamline each service to make it faster and simpler for users to find and play exactly what they want.

But what happens to all the music, films and other media held on people's iTunes?

Firstly, there's no need to fear that 18 years-worth of downloads are about to suddenly disappear.

Apple will automatically migrate all music, video and other content will to the three apps taking the place of iTunes.

Any music in the iTunes library will transfer to the Apple Music app, which will still offer access to the iTunes Store.

Users will not need to purchase the £9.999 subscription fee to access their songs, and will still be able to buy new music through the store to listen to on their Apple devices offline.

Podcasts will also automatically move across to Apple Podcasts, all of which will be accessible through in app's Library section.

Films and TV shows will shift to the Library section of Apple TV, with all three of the apps offering users all the content currently offered to users.

The transfer will take place when iTunes users download the new Catalina operating system for Mac, which will be free to install when it launches later this year.

And once Catalina is installed, iTunes will disappear from desktops forever.