HELP - Greyed Out (Ghost) songs in iTunes Devices iPhone Music

Try the following all-purpose steps for dealing with erratic device or sync behaviour. They assume that all of the content you want on the device is in your library ready for restoring. If it isn't see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device first. I would also recommend you copy everything out of the camera roll if you haven't already.

1. Backup device.
2. Restore as a new device.
3. Restore the backup you made earlier.

Use an encrypted backup if you want to preserve passwords, Wi-Fi settings, web history and health data where appropriate. I also suggest syncing with a selection of playlists (unless you're using iCloud Music Library) rather than manually adding content as, if nothing else, the process above is easier to do if you ever have to go through it again. The downside with backup encryption is that if you forget the password when you need it again, which could be years later, you may need to invoke a workaround to turn off encryption as shown in Re: disable encrypted backups, which can only help if your device is in a state that can backup to iCloud.

tt2

vbesson wrote:

I am in the situation, greyed out, I deleted them but they definitely gone! so frustated, we paid music an they stole it. I will not use ITUNES anymore!

If purchased content is missing from your library see:

• Hide and unhide iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store purchases - Apple Support
• Redownload music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, and App Store - Apple Support

See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy to keep a backup of your library in future.

tt2

I spend a great amount of time trying other solutions but this one worked for me.

I imported the songs, 99% were mp3 dowloaded from the web, recorded by me etc.

First make sure that you have the music saved on a device i.e. hard disk, usb stick, folder etc

• Delete the playlist that you are trying to sync or download the music to. (Right Click and choose from menu) Deleting the playlist does not delete the songs from the computer, it just removes the name. With the individuals songs is different. There is a difference from delete from the library and remove download. Look at In iTunes, what's the difference between Delete and Remove Download? . In short deletes = deletes from all devices and removes takes the file from the present device but not from the cloud.
• Create a new play list with the songs you want to sync or make your playlist: File>New>Playlist or ⌘N
• Asign a name to the newly created playlist
• Now, this is what I did different: from the folder where you are going to copy the songs, only select MP3 files. Do not copy the .jpg files associated with them. Most of the time what one do is to copy the complete folder and drop it to the playlist. Just copy the mp3 files.
• If you have connected your device to iTunes , on the iTunes app, on the top where appears the device icon, click on the icon. Then it will show Summary, Music, Movies etc.
• Click on music,
• Check SYNC MUSIC,
• Check Selected Playlist, Artist , Albums, Genres.
• Check Automatically Fill Free Space with Songs (this is another probability that prevents from installing songs into your device. If you have a limitation with capacity in your device, songs will not download and will appear grayed out).
• Click on the playlist you want to sync
• Click Sync and after it syncs, click done.

I hope this helps.

I had "manually manage music and videos" checked on my iphone summary page, to handle a file transfer issue I was having with file sharing. When I unchecked that and it went back to syncing from iTunes, the problem rectified itself.

See my post above.

tt2

I see there are no responses...I have the same issue and my only difference is that I am using a MBP not a Windows PC. I will continue to troubleshoot and let you know if I find something that works. My songs are in my library and I just want the "ghost" songs out of my device listing. Are you looking to do the same?

So far the only way I have found to get rid of them is to manually mange music, delete entire library on your iPhone and then add the songs back you want to have on your iPhone. I only want/need a portion since I use subscription music services. Good luck! Let me know if this helped you.

I mean delete all the songs on your iPhones music library. The reload them from your iTunes library. It's a pain but they go away.

I travel a lot so streaming from the cloud is not always an option, especially on a plane, so I need to have my music and videos saved on the device. I had this same problem with ghost songs not going away on my iPhone, and videos that were dragged over on my iPad but still grayed out. I'd Sync in iTunes time and time again and items would still stay gray...

Here's how I fixed it WITHOUT doing a Restore:

- Connect device to iTunes

- Save music/videos you want on the device to a Playlist(s)

- Turn off the Manually manage music and videos on the device

- Sync the Playlist(s)

- Phantom/ghost songs and videos went away

When I turned back on Manually manage music and videos on the device, the ghost entries stayed gone. I could then drag over the stuff I wanted from the Playlist(s).

Hope this works for you.

Hope this helps. The ghost songs dissapear after several intents. I've used DiskAid and went to the file directory in the iphone (5). Deleted everything in music and purchased directory and the ghosts are gone.

Regards

I got mine to work after navigating through all the panes, I noticed that I had "Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs to ____ AAC" checked (Underscore being your selected bitrate). So my computer was having issues converting my high bitrate songs down to AAC 128. As soon as I unchecked that and resynced my iphone 5 all the songs began to transfer back over to my phone. Hope this helps some of you!

Just chiming in to say that I had this same problem, I would drag music into my IPhone after updating and it wouldn't show up and then when I checked the "On my IPhone" tab I found a majority of them there greyed out. I did what Christy suggested and selected all of the songs and deleted them from this box. They stayed in my actual Itunes but were 'deleted' from the phone I suppose. When I tried to drag songs in again Itunes said they copied and sure enough they showed up on my phone. Thanks for the help Christy =] I hope this worked for the OP too

I too have suddenly have sync problems with music between my Mac iTunes 11.1.3(8) on my iPad mini under iOS 7. Many of my tunes show up as "ghost songs" on my iPad. I initially had a problem with Movies and TV Shows not syncing up (they showed up with zero byte length) so I restored from backup -- which fixed my video problem but then created the Music nightmare.

I can't vouch for whether this proposed solution will stand the test of time, but I've managed to get back all my PURCHASED songs that were ghosted.

On your WiFi connected device (iPad or iPhone) launch your iTunes app (not the Music player app). I did not have my device tethether to my Mac, my device was logged into my iTunes account and it had an active WiFi connection.

Launch iPad iTunes ...

Purchased>Music

Select "Not on this iPad" then "Download All"

... wait for the download to complete.

Launch iPhone iTunes ...

More>Purchased>Music

Select "Not on this iPhone" then "Download All"

... wait for the download to complete.

After you sync with your Mac you'll see that for many of your "ghost songs" you have a duplicate real song -- so I do not think this is elegantly fixed. Fortunately my Playlists all still work in spite of the ghosts.