How RadioWash works

What a clean copy is

A clean copy is a new playlist that RadioWash creates in your Apple Music library. It holds the same songs as the playlist you started from, with each explicit track replaced by its clean version — the radio edit the artist actually released. Your original playlist is never edited, reordered, or deleted; RadioWash only ever adds a new playlist next to it.

How a clean match is found

For every track in your playlist, RadioWash works through the same steps, in order:

1. Match the exact recording. Every released recording carries an identifier (an ISRC) that pins down the exact version of a song. RadioWash matches on that first, and when the recording is explicit, it looks up the clean counterpart of that same recording.
2. Search, then check every candidate. When there is no identifier match, RadioWash searches the Apple Music catalog by song title and artist, and keeps only candidates whose title, artist, and length line up with the original — a version that runs several seconds longer or shorter is a different edit, not a match. Apple Music search offers no way to ask for non-explicit results only, so RadioWash checks the content rating of each candidate itself.
3. Leave the track out if nothing clean exists. Some songs simply have no clean release. Those tracks are omitted from the copy rather than swapped for a cover, a remix, or a different song. Nothing is ever substituted that isn't the same recording.

Why a clean copy can be shorter

Because of that last step, a clean copy sometimes has fewer songs than its source. That is deliberate: the promise is that everything in the copy is actually clean, and the only honest way to keep it is to leave out what has no clean version. The job page shows exactly how every track matched, so you can see what was cleaned, what was already clean, and what was left out.

Auto-Sync

Playlists change. Auto-Sync watches a source playlist and, when new songs appear, adds their clean versions to the copy — so the copy keeps up without you re-running anything. Auto-Sync only adds: removing a song from the source does not remove it from the copy, because Apple's API offers no way to do that. Auto-Sync costs $5 per month and is the only paid part of RadioWash. Cleaning playlists is free.

Reconnecting Apple Music

Apple's authorization for third-party apps expires periodically, by design. When that happens, RadioWash asks you to reconnect — a couple of clicks, not a bug, and nothing about your playlists or copies is lost.