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How Do I Delete Songs From My iPhone, That Have Been Downloaded Via iTunes Match?

Everytime I play a song on my iPhone via iTunes Match, the song itself gets downloaded to the phone's actual hard drive.


I have played enough songs, that the majority of my iPhone's memory is taken up.


How do I do a clean wipe of all the downloaded songs (without having to delete indiviual songs), to make room for more songs to listen to?


If their is a way, will it effect my iTunes Match? It took days to sync my library up and it's the last thing I would want to do again.


Thanks in advance,

Sminman

iMac, iPhone, iPod Hi-Fi, iPad, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Dec 12, 2011 5:55 PM

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Posted on Dec 13, 2011 2:46 AM

You can do this on your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Usage. Wait a few seconds for the usage statistics to appear, then choose Music.



In the Music category, tap Edit and then the delete symbol next to “All Music”.


This will delete all the music from the phone. After this songs will still be visible (with clouds next to them). You can still play them from iTunes Match and they will be downloaded again; this will not remove them from iTunes Match.

21 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 13, 2011 2:46 AM in response to Sminman

You can do this on your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Usage. Wait a few seconds for the usage statistics to appear, then choose Music.



In the Music category, tap Edit and then the delete symbol next to “All Music”.


This will delete all the music from the phone. After this songs will still be visible (with clouds next to them). You can still play them from iTunes Match and they will be downloaded again; this will not remove them from iTunes Match.

Jan 1, 2012 9:36 PM in response to rickc517

When you are viewing your music on your iDevice and see a cloud icon next to the song that means it is available for download from the cloud. When you see a song that does not have a cloud icon next to it that means has been downloaded to the iDevice. What you are seeing in iTunes is music that is not actually on the iDevice. Look at the very bottom of the iTunes window and you'll see a little display of how many tracks, now long those tracks should play and how much space those tracks would take up. It will be "zero KB."

Jan 1, 2012 9:44 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

Ok. Thanks for that. What I am currently looking at in iTunes under music is some of the listings are in black the others are in grey. I take it the ones in black are the ones currently on my iphone? The display on the bottom of the screen you describes shows the total number or songs both in black and grey. I went on my phone and looked up the ones in grey and they are still on the cloud.

Jan 1, 2012 10:08 PM in response to rickc517

The only way that I know of is to restore your iPhone from a backup. But, remember, most of those tracks are not actually taking up any space. If you really want to delete all songs from your iPhone at once go to Settings > General > Usage, wait a few seconds for the list to populate, then tap Music. The swipe it and tap delete. That will ensure that all music is actually deleted from your iPhone.

Jan 14, 2012 6:47 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Hi Michael


Like rickc517 I do have thoes greyed out tracks showing. The weird thing is when I redownload a track thats greyed out it shows as a separate duplicate on the iphone (within the itunes menu when its pluged in to my mac)


Also Itunes on my mac counts the music in grey as part of the space on the iphone. The usage in the iphone states the correct space.


Ive noticed that all the greyed out tracks are in the purchased section on the iphone while its connected to itunes.


I've also restored my iphone after erasign all content and they still pop up. This is after Usage > delete all music.


Pretty weird

How Do I Delete Songs From My iPhone, That Have Been Downloaded Via iTunes Match?

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