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How do I remove a playlist but keep the items in my library?

That's my question. I never planned to keep the playlist forever. I didn't anticipate that the only options appear to suggest that deleting the playlist deletes the items completely. No! Just keep them where they were before I made the playlist!


This is a problem for me on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, so it's not confined to one device.

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Feb 10, 2023 9:28 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 10, 2023 9:46 AM

Deleting the playlist does not in any way delete the included tracks or albums. Just the playlist itself.

Not sure where it suggests it will delete the songs included in it too?


You can verify this by creating a test playlist and then adding a few songs you don't care about. Then delete the playlist. You'll see the songs remain intact on every device you try this on.




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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 10, 2023 9:46 AM in response to DShelbyD

Deleting the playlist does not in any way delete the included tracks or albums. Just the playlist itself.

Not sure where it suggests it will delete the songs included in it too?


You can verify this by creating a test playlist and then adding a few songs you don't care about. Then delete the playlist. You'll see the songs remain intact on every device you try this on.




Feb 10, 2023 10:46 AM in response to Phil0124

Thanks very much. The option when contemplating the deletion of the entire Playlist, which is what I wanted to do, says "Delete from Library." You are correct that in this case it does not mean what it says. It means "Delete from Playlists." Utterly inconsistent. It's all about defining terms.


So what I did was to remove each album from the my playlist separately. Now that playlist is empty and I can delete it with assurance that I'm not deleting the albums from the Apple Music Library.


Thanks!

How do I remove a playlist but keep the items in my library?

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