4 easy ways: How to delete music from iPhone

How to delete music from iPhone

If you're new to iPhone, or have never needed to delete music from your iPhone before, it may not be immediately apparent how to delete songs or albums from your device. Do not fear, though! In this article, we'll guide you through 4 easy ways in which you can remove music from your iPhone.

Before deleting music from your device, or syncing your iTunes library with your iPhone, we highly recommend backing the device up using iTunes or a third-party software. You can create a backup of your iPhone by connecting it to iTunes > click your device icon > click Back up Now.

Alternatively, you can use a third party software such as TouchCopy to transfer all of your iPhone music to your PC or Mac, or directly into your iTunes library or Apple Music app.

1. Delete tracks or albums individually

If you only wish to get rid of certain tracks or albums from your iPhone, this is the method for you:

1. If you're using iOS 9 or an earlier version, make sure only music downloaded to your device is displayed. Go to Settings > Music Show All Music, and turn off the setting by sliding it off, if it is on already. This option was removed in iOS 10
2. Open the Music app from your iPhone app menu
3. From your Music Library page, tap either the Albums or Songs header, depending on if you would like to delete entire albums or single songs.
4. Tap and hold your finger on an album or songs you wish to delete until a menu is displayed.
5. Tap the Delete From Library or "Remove" option, then confirm the deletion.

2. Delete all music from device

If the previous method was too slow for you, or if you wish to start from scratch by removing all of the music currently stored on your iPhone, you're in the right place.

To delete all music from your iPhone, follow these steps:

1. From your iPhone menu, tap Settings > General > Storage and iCloud Usage.
2. Select the Manage Storage header, then the Music header from the list of apps.
3. You'll see a list of all of the music artists stored on your device. Tap Edit.
4. Delete all songs by tapping the red circle next to 'All Songs', or the circle next to an artist to delete all songs by that particular artist.
5. Tap Delete to confirm

3. How to delete songs from iPod or iPhone with iTunes or Apple Music app.

If you prefer to use iTunes (or Apple Music app) for your music management, you can remove music stored on your iPhone through the program.

Here's how to delete songs from iPod or iPhone using iTunes or Apple Music app:

1. Open iTunes (or Apple Music if you are using macOS Catalina or higher).
2. Connect your iPhone.
3. When the device is found, click the 'Music' header from under 'On my Device' in the menu bar on the left.
4. Select the tracks you wish to delete from your iPhone.
5. Hit the 'Delete' key on your keyboard, or right-click on one of your selected tracks, and click 'Delete from Library'.
6. Confirm the deletion.

4. Delete duplicate songs on iPhone

If you think you have more than one copy of a song on your iPhone, the song will play more often when shuffling songs, and will also take up unnecessary space on your device.

Unfortunately, the iPhone currently provides no way to find which of your tracks are duplicated, so the use of a computer is necessary. We will firstly remove any duplicate songs from iTunes (or Apple Music), then sync your cleaned library with your iPhone, ensuring that your iPhone's library is the same as your iTunes library.

The quickest way to find and remove these duplicates, with the most control, is by using a trusted third-party software such as Tune Sweeper.

Tune Sweeper is an application for PC and Mac computers which will analyze your iTunes library for duplicate songs, and delete them for you automatically.

Tune Sweeper:

• Allows you to set search criteria to find all duplicate songs, or narrow it down to find specific duplicates.
• You can manually select which file to delete from a group of duplicates.
• Gives you options to automatically select songs to keep of Highest Quality, Longest Duration, Latest Added, Oldest Added or Latest Played. The other duplicates will be automatically deleted for you.
• Has loads of additional features such as fixing track information, downloading album artwork, and adding and removing missing tracks from your iTunes library.

To delete duplicate music in Tune Sweeper:

1. Download and install Tune Sweeper
2. Launch Tune Sweeper and click 'Search for Duplicates'
3. Your current iTunes library will be scanned and Tune Sweeper will return a list of duplicates
4. Manually tick which files to remove, or allow Tune Sweeper to do it automatically by selecting a Keep Selection Preference
5. Once you're happy with the selections, click Remove Duplicates

Once you've deleted all your duplicate music from iTunes, you can go ahead and sync your iTunes library with your iPhone.

iTunes

If you have a little extra time and patience to find and remove your iPhone duplicates, you can use iTunes' inbuilt functionality. iTunes does a great job of listing the duplicate music in your library, however, it does not provide any help in deciding which files to remove, which Tune Sweeper can intuitively and automatically do.

To delete duplicate music in iTunes:

1. Open iTunes and ensure that you are viewing your iTunes library songs (click the 'Songs' option under the 'Library' header).
2. Click through File > Library > Show Duplicate Items
3. Select the files you want to remove.
4. Hit the 'Delete' key on your keyboard, or right-click a selected track, and click 'Delete from Library'
5. Confirm the removal