How to delete a song from computer but not iCloud

Question

Level 1

8 points

How to delete a song from computer but not iCloud

I have iTunes libraries (different) on two users on my computer, both synced to iCloud. I have my iPhone synced to iCloud. I want to delete a number of songs from ONE of the computer iTunes libraries WITHOUT deleting the songs from iCloud, because I still want them on my phone and other computer user. How can I do this? I thought when I selected "Delete" that it would give me an option "Do you want to also delete from iCloud?" (because Apple's website says this is the dialog box that will come up), but I had no such option. It only said, "This will delete it from the cloud also."

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2), 27" 2011 model

Posted on Feb 19, 2012 5:11 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 19, 2012 5:19 PM in response to catservants

Do you have iTunes Match?

If not, just delete the song. They are not in iCloud.

Note that iTunes purchases will always be available for redownload.

Reply

Answer 2

catservants Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2012 7:11 PM in response to Chris CA

I have iTunes Match.

Reply

Answer 3

catservants Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2012 7:11 PM in response to Chris CA

And none of the songs I want to delete are purchased from iTunes.

Reply

Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 19, 2012 8:09 PM in response to catservants

As long as you have iTunes Match ($25 per year), the songs will be available for redownload.

Reply

Answer 5

catservants Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2012 8:38 PM in response to Chris CA

But, as I said, I don't want to delete them from the other computer user or the iPhone, but when I try to delete them off my iTunes list, the warning message says it will delete them from iCloud.

Reply

Answer 6

Ferretbite

Level 4

1,586 points

Feb 19, 2012 9:26 PM in response to catservants

Are you sure it's not asking whether you want to delete from iCloud? When I delete songs on my computer I always get that dialog window asking if I want to remove it too.

Reply

Answer 7

catservants Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2012 9:51 PM in response to Ferretbite

Okay, let me try to explain this a little more. I am a language teacher, and I have about 30 CDs of language training (each CD has about 30-50 tracks). I have a business user and a personal user on my computer. I put the language training tracks on the business user iTunes library, and use the iPhone in my classroom, so I want the business user and the iPhone connected via iCloud. On my personal user, I have about 20,000 songs, and I want those to be in iCloud so that I can access them on my iPhone if I want to, but don't have to carry them around on my iPhone all the time -- it will take up too much space. However, the problem I have now is that my personal user is cluttered with those hundreds of language training tracks, and I don't want them there. I have never downloaded them to the personal user, so they're just listed there, but they're annoying to be mixed in with my music. So I want to delete them off the list in my personal user, but I DON'T want to delete them from iCloud because I want my business user and iPhone to sync.

When I try to delete the language tracks from the list on my personal user, I get this warning message: "Are you sure you want to delete the selected song from iCloud? This will delete the song from all of your iTunes Match devices." How can I avoid deleting the songs from ALL my devices? I only want to delete it from this one library.

Reply

Answer 8

troybk

Level 1

0 points

Mar 1, 2012 6:27 PM in response to catservants

This is a very good question - and one which I also have. Can I delete all of the songs from my iMac and still keep them in the iCloud? That way I can free up a lot of space on the iMac.

Reply

Answer 9

Jul 25, 2012 9:58 AM in response to troybk

Also looking for this answer.

Reply

Answer 10

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Jul 25, 2012 10:49 AM in response to catservants

catservants wrote:

When I try to delete the language tracks from the list on my personal user, I get this warning message: "Are you sure you want to delete the selected song from iCloud? This will delete the song from all of your iTunes Match devices." How can I avoid deleting the songs from ALL my devices? I only want to delete it from this one library.

If it shows a cloud icon, it is not on your computer. It is in iCloud.

If you select to delete it, it will delete it from iCloud.

When using iTunes on yoru computer, if you do not want to show items in iCloud then turn off iCloud on your computer.

Reply

Answer 11

Ferretbite

Level 4

1,586 points

Aug 3, 2012 12:40 AM in response to troybk

Yes, you can. It's not really recommended unless you have another backup on an external hard drive or dvd, but you absolutely can delete songs from your computer only, while keeping them on iCloud.

Reply

Answer 12

DGMTR

Level 1

1 points

Feb 25, 2014 1:04 PM in response to Ferretbite

How? Please.

Reply

Answer 13

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 25, 2014 1:58 PM in response to DGMTR

DGMTR wrote:

How? Please.

Select it in iTunes then presss Delete.

Reply

Answer 14

DGMTR

Level 1

1 points

Feb 25, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Chris CA

When I hit delete it asks if I want to delete from iCloud. I managed to get CD's I downloaded for my friend in both of our lists. She wants to get rid of mine and I want to get rid of hers on our computers but we each want to be able to access our own from iCloud.

Reply

Answer 15

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 25, 2014 3:23 PM in response to DGMTR

DGMTR wrote:

When I hit delete it asks if I want to delete from iCloud.

Then you cannot delete it from your computer because it is not on your computer. It is only in iCloud.

If you are using iTunes Match, everything in your iTunes library is in iCloud and will show in all users unless they turn off iTunes Match.

You cannot show only part of iCloud for different users.

Reply