iPhone Songs Greyed Out - Won't Delete

Hi there,

I had this very same problem after upgrading to a 4s from my 3g. It was particularly annoying to be missing 800+ of my 2000 songs, and I tried syncing it several times before turning to google in frustration. Looks like lots of us are having this issue. After reading a couple suggestions here is what FINALLY worked for me -

syncing with airplane mode

all apps turned off

while running sync when it stops on a particular song, uncheck/ or delete - some songs interrupted the sync even unchecked

keep syncing that mother til (most) everything transfers

This worked to get 795 of my songs that were previously greyed out back in my itunes. I'm pretty psyched overall🙂

Thank you all for your suggestions, hope my troubles can be of help to someone else.

Thank you!

THIS is the easiest way to sort it out!!!!

On your iPhone swipe the artist with the tracks which are a problem and delete (this only removes the artist from your phone, not your iTunes Library!).

Now attach to your PC/Mac and re-sync. The artist should reappear and greyed out tracks are gone. If artist doesn't reappear, just add the artist back onto your iPhone manually in iTunes like you were adding them for the first time and sync again.

No issues, no fuss, no resetting etc etc.

wish i had seen your post first. after trying (with no luck) a number of other suggested ways to fix this problem, your method is the one that actually worked on my iphone - no more phantom tracks listed now! thanks very much!

i had a similar problem, on my iphone some songs were duplicated and greyed out so i couldnt remove them on the iphone, in itunes i didnt see the duplicated greyed out songs.. After trying some ways to fix this problem it was this fix that actually worked for me:

Deconnect your iphone from your computer.

Sign out and back in to the Apple ID on the iPhone (Settings>Store>tap ID shown, sign out, sign back in).

Connect iphone to computer.

Go to itunes and do a synchronise.

Go to music on your iphone and all greyed out songs should be disappeared.

I had this problem and the thing that worked for me was figuring out what songs were greyed out on my phone and then finding them in my library on my computer. I then just dragged these songs back onto my phone, they became ungreyed and were playable.

I had same problem and took half a day to figure it out... I tried everything i could think or read here and nothing worked. So i decide to restore my iPhone 4S and configure it as a new one. But before, i did some copy/paste of my photos/video folders from Windows Explorer then i've select all then tried to delete it from windows explorer..after few deleted i got a message saying that the device wasnt responding or was unpluged. But wasnt.

some files was not deletable. And in my iPhone the pictures wasnt there too but files was listed in windows explorer....

So, i did a Photos sync but choosing the Windows Sample folder only. It wiped out all my photos folder and did new one, then all my songs were synced again and all is back and playable.

I suggest, look if you have photos, videos, apps that isnt working or not deletable.. then wipe it out by an iTunes sync (unselecting sync those things or sync completely different apps or folder)

It worked for me... Hope you get it fixed too.

Syncing while the iPhone is in airplane mode worked brilliantly. Weeks of frustration are now over!

I'd already tried the "delete the artist" and the "drag the song back into your playlist" ideas. No luck. Then I tried this one, and it's working like a charm. Over 800 songs are re-syncing to my iphone as I type. Thank you!

Thanks for the easy solution to my greyed out songs problem.

i spent hours tryinging to get round this and finally did it!

i have a jailbroken iphone 4 on 6.1.3 and the grayed out music was music i downloaded with protube.

itunes didnt fix it for me i just used ifile.

I opened var/mobile/libary/protube

the music tracks were there

i deleted them and opened the config folder and deleted the cash

i resprung my phone and the music was gone!

Thanks - it worked perfectly for me just deleting the artist and re-syncing. Brilliant

I had this problem but eventually saw a fix on a post somewhere on this forum and it solved it straight away.

I went into iTunes, then from the top bar menu, clicked on iTunes - Preferences - Devices, and in this sections checked the option that says 'Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically'.

After I checked this option and re synced my iPone, all the greyed out tracks started to sync and show in bold like the other tracks.

Hope this helps!

This solved my problem. Thanks!

Thanks so much. This worked perfectly for me.