Delete music from library and local hard drive

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Delete music from library and local hard drive

Hi,

I keep my audio collection on local hard drive. I recently signed up for apple music and my hole library uploaded to the iCloud.

Yesterday I needed to remove a couple of albums. I connected my local HD to the laptop, right-click on album and press "Delete for Library". After that, I understood that album deleted only from iTunes library and don't delete from local drive.

Today I called Apple Support and the guy told me that's alright! This is how iTunes works with Apple Music. He told me that I need 1) delete a song from the library in iTunes and 2) find and delete a song from hard drive, and then the song removed from both.

My question to the community. If you need delete song from iTunes and from hard drive, how do you do that? I mean, when I click "delete from library" I'd like to delete the song from library and hard drive in one click.

I can do a video if someone needs this :)

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 9, 2019 6:21 AM

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Answer 1

iLimberg Author

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Jul 19, 2019 12:41 AM in response to Marco Klobas

yeah, but only when you don't use Apple Music... I already recognize that you can delete songs from iCloud library and local hard drive in two steps: 1) Delete song from iCloud 2) Delete song from Finder by hands.

So, I delete all music from iCloud, sign out from my Apple ID, add all music from local drive in iTunes, delete everything what I need and then, I think I will use Match...

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Answer 2

iLimberg Author

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Jul 20, 2019 3:37 PM in response to Marco Klobas

Hey, I recorded a video. If song stored in iCloud, it's not linked with a hard drive. At the end of the video, I deleted song with Cmd+Del, but song deleted only from iTunes Library. So I'll move to iTunes Match.

https://youtu.be/Izk7i_lASlo

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

274,174 points

Jul 20, 2019 3:42 PM in response to iLimberg

iTunes will only offer to delete the local copy of a file when you delete the entry from the library if that file is located within the currently designated iTunes Media folder. Could the tracks that need two steps to delete be located outside of it? You can try this DeleteSelectedFiles script.

tt2

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

274,174 points

Jul 20, 2019 4:06 PM in response to iLimberg

If you eject the drive then iTunes initially assumes the file is where it is supposed to be. That information is only updated when you attempt to access the track. If you don't repair the broken link but iCloud Music Library is active, then iTunes can switch to the cloud link so you could stream or download the track. Now when you delete it only the cloud link is removed as there is no longer an association with a local file. Even if you reconnected the drive at this point the file would be ignored.

tt2

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Answer 5

Jul 18, 2019 12:01 PM in response to iLimberg

Command + Delete deletes the song from the library and puts the song file in the trash.

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Answer 6

Jul 19, 2019 1:59 AM in response to iLimberg

I use Apple Music.

I've just tried to import a song, waited the iCloud matching/uploading and then deleted with Command + Delete. The song was removed from my library and the file moved to the trash.

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