Q: Can't delete songs from my iPhone 4

Carlaaayx3

You need to make sure iTunes and iPhone are fully up to date with their software. Click on itunes in the menu bar up top and choose check for updates. Go to the iPhone main tab to check for updates to your phone or ipod. Restart the program. Plug in the device.

Go and check manually manage. If it prompts you to erase anything just push cancel and try again, it may be trying to sync with a different library, i don't know enough since I'm not there. Make sure you are NOT syncing. Cancel any syncing thats going on,

If it still wont let you manually manage without erasing then just go ahead and erase- if all of the music is in your library. Once you have the songs deleted from the ipod/iphone AND the library then you can go back and choose to sync the device under the music tab.

Even if you have to re-sync it shouldn't take too long the wifi sync is super fast (for me it averages about 1000 songs every 30 seconds). So just go for it, since it syncs over wifi do it while your at home so you arent stuck.

I have tried everything here except for the Restore option and nothing works.

And, to add to the fun here, I have a 32 gig phone but in the footer of itunes when I select my phone, there is that little bar that indicates how much memory is used by each media type on my phone. When I add up all the numbers for Audio (26.1), Photos (0.01), Apps (0.48), and Free (20.2) GB, I magically seem to have a totally capacity of 46.79.

If I were you:

• Un-sync music (erase audio from phone)
• Right click, Backup
• Restore

While it's working, delete the songs from your library, restore from backup, sync music again. Hope it still gives you extra space?

Hey CobaltComet,

I am not that worried about it at the moment. I figure they will release a fix. Besides, if the bug exists, then my restore is not going to get rid of the bug. I am still going to have to restore everytime I want to change the songs on my phone. At least that is what I expect.

This is pretty rediculous. I have the same problem, and performed all the "fixes" noted throughout this thread.  My software is 5.0.1 for my 4s.  I just can't beleive that Apple and all their smarts did not add an edit into the phone to delete songs from the music area without being hooked up to iTunes.   I have artist, songs and albums that still remain and they have been deleted from my music library on iTunes. There has got to be a better way Apple like developing a software fix to add the delete option ( if all else fails). Example:  When I access via General > usage > music:   if notes NO Data. after I deleted all music.  But ! when I access Music, there in Songs, Artist and Albums listed ( of course they cannot play unless I allow access to a Wi-Fi network. SO how do you remove the informationin Songs, Artist and Albums ?

Try to empty your library in itunes the hit on sync.

Thanks flogger, but the albums, artist and songs that are in my iPhone have been deleted from my library.  My playlist in my iPhone is empty.

REALLY F***' GREAT decision!!!!!!!!!

I struggled with this for a long time as well.  What finally worked is,

I shut off the Itunes Match on my phone. 

Then plugged it into the computer.

Then get into itunes.

And you can delete them just like you'd delete anything else in Itunes. 

For me it was something with Itunes Match that was stopping me from being able to delete them.

Hope this helps.

Agreed.  This is an issue with Match on the iPhone. 

Apple has blown the quality issue with Match as it is taking Apple a long time to work the bugs out of Match - and a lot of customers are paying the price in wasted hours of using a buggy service.  I thought they might have finally got it ready - but here is another bug.  (How long has it been out now?  Not good.)

johnivan got it right:  Disconnect the iPhone, turn off Match on the iPhone, plug it back into iTunes, delete songs through iTunes, then disconnect it, turn on Match again. 

How's that for ease of use?

I have never used or even explored match. So, if it is related to match then that is a severe bug. But, since I did not have match turned on, then the suggested solution will not work.

Yes, if you're getting an inability to delete and you're not using Match - then it is a separate issue from the one I described above.

FWIW, on your issue of strange behavior of the capacity indicator - I've seen inconsistent behavior recently on that indicator as well.  On mine it was as if iTunes was double counting the amount of space used by audio media.  It jumped to this higher reading when I initiated a purchase transfer command.  But the reading on the iPhone was consistent - and the reading on iTunes returned to normal during a subsequent session.

I'm not using match. 

I'm another sufferer. I subscribed to Match last night and I've been struggling to delete music from my iPhone 4S ever since.

None of the obvious procedures - nor any of those suggested above - will work.

Apart, that is, the manual phone swipe/delete.

This is very painful - come on Apple

OK so after acquiring a sore finger I have a clean iPhone with Match turned off.

And it's going to stay turned off until Apple supply us with the simple expediency of playing iCloud music WITHOUT downloading to the phone.

After all, I need a playlist for times when I can't be online, and I want to keep control of that playlist and of my phone's capacity.

Having said all this - Match is a great product for those of us with old, low bitrate libraries and several devices. Remember though that the higher bitrate files will take more phone memory for the same number of tracks.