Delete Songs Directly on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Nov 9, 2011 - 31 Comments
You can now delete songs directly from the Music app on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, thanks to iOS 5. This is achieved directly on the iOS device without having to re-sync to iTunes, and it’s very easy and intuitive:
- Launch the Music app (used to be called iPod)
- Tap through to any song, and slide sideways on the track name to bring up a red “Delete” button, tap that to delete the song
To delete another song just repeat the process. That’s really all there is to it, a surprisingly easy tip that is yet another nice addition to the iOS platform that lets you manage data on an iOS device without having to connect it to a computer.
Prior to iOS 5, songs had to be deleted through iTunes on the device itself and then resynced, all while connecting the iPhone, iPod, or iPad to a computer. Thank you Apple for simplifying the post-PC process!
Thanks for sending this in Loic
HALLELUJAH!!!
Gosh I was waiting for it for 3.5 years, you would think for such a basic feature all mp3 players have
If I delete a song on the iPhone, what happen to iTunes library?
…It deletes off the phone. That’s all.
Funny, we’ve been able to do that with movies for awhile (I remember wanting to download an app and being told there was not enough free space, went in to the video app, swiped across one of the movies in the list and up popped a Delete button)…
i delete 2 videos from my ipod and now i can sync those videos again, what can i do ??!
But we still can’t delete photos from Photostream….
Go on iclouds and turn photostream off
Unfortunately, next time you sync to iTunes, the deleted song comes back unless you uncheck it. Unless there is another trick to it, I don’t see a way around that. Any advice?
You can also delete individual calls from your call history as well… Finally!!
You can also delete entire albums.
Interesting. If I delete a song from the phone this way, will it get replaced the next time I sync?
[...] Delete Songs Directly on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch Delete Songs Directly on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch… Source: osxdaily.com [...]
Does anyone know a way that you can sync the iPod with iTunes so that the songs you deleted on the iPod will be removed from your iTunes library?
[...] swipe-to-delete gesture is seen elsewhere after iOS 5, including when deleting a song from iTunes on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. stLight.options({ [...]
It doesn’t even really delete it off the iphone. It removes the file from the library list on it so if you manually manage music you now just have a music file taking up space. (HOW WORTHLESS APPLE) It is a hugely needed function and would make music management better than on itunes but alas they would rather taunt us then give us a useable function, oh and if you don’t manually manage then it will just reappear next time you sync. Thanks the big F-U apple
I like how it only deletes the music file off the iphone/ipod touch/ipad.
It would really suck to have a unintended incident that deleted the file and/or cleared a playlist for good, knowing you can’t just sync from computer for backup restore.
OMFG I LOVE YOU!
is there any way i can UNDO the delete WITHOUT having to go on itunes and syncing it? because, like someone mentioned, I think its still actually there on the hard drive, but just not available.
[...] probably know by now that you can delete songs on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, just by swiping on a song and tapping “Delete”, but [...]
Guess what … the next time you sync, it puts the song(s) right back on your IPhone. And I don’t even have these songs, artists or albums checked. Sigh.
For some reason, the IPhone is pulling these from the latest backup instead of from my ITunes library.
You need to manually manage the song list, it’s an option in iTunes.
Agh! Finally!!! This has been driving me crazy! Thank you thank you thank you!
I deleted an album off of my Iphone and I can’t get it back on. It’s still in my Itunes. I’ve made sure it’s checked. It sincs new music but I still have no access to this album on my phone as far as I can tell.
What I did (I have a mac) is plug in the ipod and go to itunes.
1)Under “Devices” select my ipod, then select Summary from the options across the top.
2) Scroll down to Options and check Manually Manage Music
3)Click “Apply”
4)Drag the music to the ipod
5)Make sure that the in the Music section, there is nothing clicked that will avoid that artist or album, and then unclick Manually Manage Music
You get a warning that says everything will be replaced or something like that, but it appears to just resync. The music should be there now.
I forgot to mention in step 5, click Apply again.
If it only deletes the name of the song and not the entire file it is pointless. I am taking my Iphone to Europe and want to use it for photos, but also wanted to store songs on it for the long flight then delete them when I got there to make room for photos. I guess the brilliant minds at Apple have made these two things useless for me.
I cannot delete songs on my iPad with the music icon.
tnks
Thanks for the help…much appreciated
Anyone who says iOS is intuitive is on *crack*. Who in their right mind would ever have figured this out on their own? 2 of us spent 15 minutes trying everything under the sun. Apple = easy-to-use, my ass.
And thank you for providing the solution.
Thank you sooooo much for showing this simple but yet so hard to know…