can't delete purchased music from iPhone

9/5/17 I decided to clear out all of the music from my iPhone because I never use it to play songs. I was partially successful but every time that I synch my iPhone 4S there are 3 songs from an album that I'd purchased years which keep reappearing after I've synched my phone. I've tried numerous times to delete these 3 songs without success; these 3 songs are not visible on my iPhone but show up on my computer's iTunes as waiting to be downloaded. I deleted the complete album from my iTunes library but these 3 songs (out of the 6 songs on this one album) continue to reload onto my iTunes list showing a circle on the left side of each one indicating that these three are waiting to be downloaded. I attempted many times to download these songs, then repeatedly tried clicking on "delete from library" on each one but there somehow "stuck" and won't disappear. I copied this entire album of 6 songs to my desktop and will reinstall it once I can find out how to delete these 3 stuck songs from my iTunes synch.

I finally figured it out after a couple hours. The music is staying on because under your iPhone sync you have "back up to iCloud" clicked. Click backup to computer instead.

I reread your post and saw that this wasn't an issue for iOS 5 so this might not help you

If you go to iTunes on your iPad and in Album view, click and hold on the album. This will give you an X in the left top corner. Click on the X and it is gone.... This doesn't need to change the backup in iCloud settings.

Last month I had big problems trying to sync my iTunes music to my new iPhone. I switched from AT&T to Verizon while upgrading from a 3GS to a 4S. I could not delete undesired purchased music (music I bought from iTunes, wanted to retain in iTunes, but did NOT want to transfer to my iPhone), and some of the music that I did buy from iTunes and wanted on my iPhone would not transfer.

After unresolved frustration trying to fix with Apple Care, I took the phone and my computer to the local Genius Bar. He tried a few things that didn't work, and we finally just did a factory restore on the phone. It's worked perfectly ever since...

Until this morning. On my iPhone (and my iTunes options, on my Mac) is an option to automatically sync iTunes purchases to all devices. Unfortunately, I had this turned on. I ended up buying about 40 songs on iTunes this morning, most of which are Christmas gifts for my wife. I only want about four of the songs on my iPhone, but because of the setting, ALL of the songs are now on my iPhone. Unchecking all of my playlists and resyncing my iPhone does not delete them.

I will try a few more things tonight, but assuming that doesn't work, I am going to turn OFF the automatic sync feature, backup my iPhone, and do another factory restore. I'll keep you posted.

EDIT: This worked.

First, I turned off the automatic sync of purchased music to my iPhone (did this both in iPhone store settings, and the iTunes preferences (store tab).

I connected my phone to iTunes to allow it to back up. I do all my backups to iTunes, not the Cloud.

Then I plopped the phone in restore mode (while connected to iTunes via USB, hold both buttons on my phone, keep holding buttons as phone shuts off and the apple comes on the screen. Count to 8 seconds, and the phone is now in restore mode).

Restored from my iTunes backup.

All of the purchased music that I did not want on my iPhone is now gone!

Me also I'd love to get rid of some of the songs I dl'ed last week, only to find out I can't stand them! The keep coming back off my iTouch, despite the warning iTunes on my Mac pops up each time I trash them. Curiously, some seem to have been deleted, but 3 remain.

pajapi wrote:

If you go to iTunes on your iPad and in Album view, click and hold on the album. This will give you an X in the left top corner. Click on the X and it is gone.... This doesn't need to change the backup in iCloud settings.

Does this only work on the iPad? Can't seem to get it to do that on my iTouch ...

If I'm still awake enough when I get home tonight, I'll try to clear all music off the pod, and then restore it. It'd be madness to have to do a restore to wipe a few songs (but then, a reboot is required to get rid of an unrecognised CD, so what can you expect :-/ )

After spending almost all night fiddleing with my iphone I have worked it out. It's very similar to pajapi's instructions for ipad:

Go into music and Album view. Swipe your finger quite quickly across the album you wish to delete (from right to left seems to work best). A red 'delete' button will appear. After deleting it, it wont appear again unless you select in your itunes libury.

This seems to work in 'Song' view and 'Artists' view as well.

Icamoir I cannot begin to thank you enough for this advice.

It's been bugging me for ages!!

Always the same: Too easy to be true, I already went nuts because of it!!

Thank you so much. Just so everyone knows this works for movies too

Great info. I had two itunes free singles of the week that I downloaded, did not like, and could not get rid of. I would delete them from itunes over and over again only to see them reappear each time I synced my iphone with itunes. This was driving me nuts. Hopefully, this will do the trick in getting rid of them for good (it sounds like it will).

I didn't read all the responses. (So sorry for a repeat answer) The easiest way to do it is- Go to your music on your phone, selecet albums at the bottom, and simply swipe your finger accross the album you do not wish to have and the delete prompt will come up. Then hit delete!

Hope this helps! 🙂

This didn't work for me. I have an iphone 4s. I've tried everything mentioned here I think. I deleted all the albums from my phone but then when I went to synch they automatically come back. I have my settings to only synch one playlist, it has 105 songs - but there are 128 invisible songs that automatically get synched. I delete all from my phone, try again. I'm beating my head against a wall.