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iPhone 11 iTunes music media content change

How can I delete the entire iTunes music media content from my iPhone 11 (iOS 16) in order to synchronize with a totally new organized iTunes music media content from my iMac (macOS 13)? I've deleted former contents to reduce capacity for the entire content, and added a few new albums. Synchronization tries to add that content instead of changing, and doesn't work because I'm warned that there's not enough capacity on the iPhone (which obviously is more than enough!).


And how can I manage that during synchronization the album covers which are stored on the Mac also appear on the iPhone? They did in the past, but now for every new album wrong random covers appear on the iPhone. It may be a problem due to the gap between operating system versions.


Hope I explained the problems clearly enough.

iPhone 11, iOS 16

Posted on Oct 7, 2023 7:50 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 8, 2023 3:48 PM

Hi Achduliebezeit,


Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. We understand you'd like to remove the music content on your iPhone and then sync music content from your iMac. This article explains how: Sync music between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.


"You can sync all or a selection of your music on your Mac to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Important: If you subscribe to Apple Music, your music is transferred automatically to all your devices and no syncing is required. You can’t use the syncing method described here unless you turn off the Sync Library option in Apple Music settings.

See Intro to syncing your Mac and your devices.


Sync music to your device

  1. Connect your device to your Mac.

You can connect your device using a USB or USB-C cable or using a Wi-Fi connection. See Sync content between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over Wi-Fi.

2. In the Finder  on your Mac, select the device in the Finder sidebar.

A device selected in the Finder sidebar.

If you connect your device to your Mac using a USB cable and don’t see the device in the Finder sidebar, see If your device doesn’t appear in the sidebar

3. Click Music in the button bar.

The button bar showing Music selected.

4. Select the “Sync music onto [device name]” checkbox to turn on syncing of your music.

With the checkbox selected, syncing is set to transfer all your music to your device. 

“Sync music onto device” checkbox appears with additional options for syncing your entire library or only selected items and including videos and voice memos in the syncing process.

5. To sync a selection of music, click “Selected playlist, artists, albums, and genres.”

6. Select the checkbox for each item you want to sync in the music list. Deselect the checkbox for any item you don’t want to sync.

Click Artists, Albums, Genres, or Playlists to see your content organized by that category. 

7. Select syncing options: 

    • Select the “Include videos” checkbox to include videos when syncing.
    • Select the “Include voice memos” checkbox to include voice memos when syncing.
    • Select the “Automatically fill free space with songs” checkbox to have your Mac fill the free space on your device with songs when syncing. Use this option if you have a large music library on your Mac but don’t have room to sync all of your music to your device. This option syncs as many songs as possible. See Fill your device with a random selection of songs using Autofill.

8. When you’re ready to sync, click Apply.

You can select the “Sync only checked songs” option in the General options to create a selection of songs to your devices. Other songs in your library that aren’t checked are not synced to your Mac or devices. See Save storage space when syncing.

You can choose to sync your Mac and your device automatically whenever you connect them. See Turn automatic syncing on or off on Mac.

Before disconnecting your device from your Mac, click the Eject button  in the Finder sidebar.


Remove automatically synced music from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

To remove unwanted music from both your Mac and device, delete the music from your Mac and sync your device.

To remove music from just your device while keeping it on your Mac, follow these steps:

  1. Connect your device to your Mac.
  2. You can connect your device using a USB or USB-C cable or using a Wi-Fi connection. See Sync content between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over Wi-Fi.
  3. In the Finder  on your Mac, select your device in the sidebar, then click Music in the button bar.
  4. In the Music list, deselect the checkboxes of the music you want removed from your device.
  5. When you’re ready to sync, click Apply.

WARNING: If you delete an automatically synced item from your Mac, the deleted item is removed from your device the next time you sync.

Before disconnecting your device from your Mac, click the Eject button  in the Finder sidebar."


Take care.



Similar questions

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 8, 2023 3:48 PM in response to Achduliebezeit

Hi Achduliebezeit,


Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. We understand you'd like to remove the music content on your iPhone and then sync music content from your iMac. This article explains how: Sync music between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.


"You can sync all or a selection of your music on your Mac to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Important: If you subscribe to Apple Music, your music is transferred automatically to all your devices and no syncing is required. You can’t use the syncing method described here unless you turn off the Sync Library option in Apple Music settings.

See Intro to syncing your Mac and your devices.


Sync music to your device

  1. Connect your device to your Mac.

You can connect your device using a USB or USB-C cable or using a Wi-Fi connection. See Sync content between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over Wi-Fi.

2. In the Finder  on your Mac, select the device in the Finder sidebar.

A device selected in the Finder sidebar.

If you connect your device to your Mac using a USB cable and don’t see the device in the Finder sidebar, see If your device doesn’t appear in the sidebar

3. Click Music in the button bar.

The button bar showing Music selected.

4. Select the “Sync music onto [device name]” checkbox to turn on syncing of your music.

With the checkbox selected, syncing is set to transfer all your music to your device. 

“Sync music onto device” checkbox appears with additional options for syncing your entire library or only selected items and including videos and voice memos in the syncing process.

5. To sync a selection of music, click “Selected playlist, artists, albums, and genres.”

6. Select the checkbox for each item you want to sync in the music list. Deselect the checkbox for any item you don’t want to sync.

Click Artists, Albums, Genres, or Playlists to see your content organized by that category. 

7. Select syncing options: 

    • Select the “Include videos” checkbox to include videos when syncing.
    • Select the “Include voice memos” checkbox to include voice memos when syncing.
    • Select the “Automatically fill free space with songs” checkbox to have your Mac fill the free space on your device with songs when syncing. Use this option if you have a large music library on your Mac but don’t have room to sync all of your music to your device. This option syncs as many songs as possible. See Fill your device with a random selection of songs using Autofill.

8. When you’re ready to sync, click Apply.

You can select the “Sync only checked songs” option in the General options to create a selection of songs to your devices. Other songs in your library that aren’t checked are not synced to your Mac or devices. See Save storage space when syncing.

You can choose to sync your Mac and your device automatically whenever you connect them. See Turn automatic syncing on or off on Mac.

Before disconnecting your device from your Mac, click the Eject button  in the Finder sidebar.


Remove automatically synced music from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

To remove unwanted music from both your Mac and device, delete the music from your Mac and sync your device.

To remove music from just your device while keeping it on your Mac, follow these steps:

  1. Connect your device to your Mac.
  2. You can connect your device using a USB or USB-C cable or using a Wi-Fi connection. See Sync content between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over Wi-Fi.
  3. In the Finder  on your Mac, select your device in the sidebar, then click Music in the button bar.
  4. In the Music list, deselect the checkboxes of the music you want removed from your device.
  5. When you’re ready to sync, click Apply.

WARNING: If you delete an automatically synced item from your Mac, the deleted item is removed from your device the next time you sync.

Before disconnecting your device from your Mac, click the Eject button  in the Finder sidebar."


Take care.



Oct 9, 2023 3:35 AM in response to Jeff_888

Hi Jeff_888, your answer of course was correct, but not helpful. I did follow the proposed support article BEFORE asking my question in the community because it did not solve my problem. I think it's because I bought a quite new iPhone 11 after getting rid of my defect old one (iPhone X) about half a year ago. To have no data loss the new one was initialized with the back-up of the old one then. After that, I could only add new music content by selecting only them before sync, and all the old content remained untouched – and this also is effective after reorganizing the content on the iMac, whatever I click before sync. So my question can be reduced to the following: How can I DELETE all iTunes content from the iPhone, resulting in 0% audio, before syncing with the reorganized content from the iMac afterwards, which has less storage capacity (51 GB) than the old content (58 GB)?


I fear that the other problem with wrong album covers will then spread over all my 743 albums – this might be due to the current iOS 16 versus the old macOS 13, and I don't want to also buy a newer iMac...


Anyway, thanks for trying to help!

Oct 9, 2023 4:01 AM in response to Jeff_888

2nd reply: I've just found deep within the preferences of the iPhone a button to remove music content; sorry for not diving deep enough before (I could find such a remark in the manual). In this minute (or hour), all the music existing on my iMac (6,620 titles) is pulling down on the iPhone by syncing. So that problem is solved!


(After completion, I will check the album covers but I am pessimistic...)

Oct 9, 2023 7:22 AM in response to chuckbl

Hi chuckbl,


thanks for your attention! Meanwhile, sync was successfully done, and in addition, correct album covers are visible now. Seems I had to discover every single item in iOS 16 (which I did not yet); after enabling mobile data access for the Music app – what did not occur regarding my previous iPhones – also this problem was solved. The community did help by dragging me to dive deeper into it...


I started with iPhone 6 2014, and currently the 11 is my third; problems sometimes arise, but if there is no severe accident it all works out.


Sorry for any irritation on your side.

iPhone 11 iTunes music media content change

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