Songs are greyed out with a dotted circle next to them and won't sync

This is the most helpful reply I've ever seen. FINALLY someone was able to offer a legitimate fix. My savior.

Hi people- Actually in some cases (like mine) I think for some reason iTunes is not downloading the file to the iPhone, and rather keeping it in the "cloud."

To fix, I went to Music on my iPhone, selected the red menu in the center (Songs, or artists, etc) then scrolled down and unchecked "Only Downloaded Music"

Additionally it looks like at the top right you can choose "Show All Music"

Then I could find my missing albums, and they had the magic "Cloud with down arrow" icon next to them. I clicked it and it appeared to have downloaded them locally to the iPHone.

.

This is an amazing fix - thank you so much! i've been bugged by these greyed out songs for years, even changing iPhones didn't fix it!

Apple definitely need to address this, but thank you 🙂

Running iTunes 12.5.1.21 and this did not fix the issue. I will say it didn't hurt it either.

Mac book Pro running Mac Os Sierra

Jerrill, you are my hero. After hours of trying to remove greyed out songs, I finally found your post and it worked like a charm!

Jerrill, Thank you!!

Just wish I'd come across your reply four hours ago. I'd tried so much and this was the only thing that worked.

Hi Jerrill

I am following this for my iPhone 6S plus, 68 Gb. I just downloaded the iFunbox for Windows 7, but won't be making any changes until I have a chance to actually check it out. I have tried looking for a simple answer to this on the net, but I am really computer illiterate. I mean B-A-D! So, could you (or anyone) explain what and where is the iPhone's "Raw File System"? Or a good, simplified explanation I can read? I've been having problems with some songs being greyed out and that mocking little circle when I synch my phone and look at my music there vice my PC. Last night iTunes was not responding to much of anything, so I shutdown my PC (which usually everything is fine when I log back on) and went to bed. When I got up, everything in "purchased" and even in the complete list of music was greyed out. Then I couldn't open my account, and when I went troubleshooting, the Device Manager did not show my Apple Mobile USB Driver under the USB Controllers. Hmmm???? Have no clue. Sometime while grappling for answers, I turned off "Find My Phone", and when I turned it back on, everything was back. I still have some songs greyed out with the circle there, but everything else is back. ???? I guess you can understand why I said I'm not going to try any changes with iFunbox. 😕 I'm skeered to at this time. But, I would really like to have some info on the "Raw File System"? In the meantime, I think I'll just shutdown iTunes and go listen to my Amazon music for a change. 😀

Thank you to Jerrill and anyone else who understood a word I just typed.

Barb M.

Hi, everyone,

I didn't use FunBox, but DID use iExplorer, and it worked beautifully. I had all these greyed out songs that just WOULD NOT go away, no matter what I did.... In iExplorer, the steps are just a "little" different. You have to navigate to your device folder (e.g. mine is "Jen's iPhone") then open the "Media" folder and within that, the "Purchases" folder. I then did a "Select All," and right-clicked to "delete."

Then I opened iTunes and looked for music on my iPhone - nothing! I backed up my phone and went to look for music on it (usually this is when the "greyed out" tracks suddenly reappeared) and...nothing!

In my case, it was my purchased tracks (in iCloud) that refused to be deleted. Yes, I had already changed the settings on my phone to NOT show purchases, but my phone seemed to ignore that :-( And I did try the General-->Settings-->Usage trick, but unfortunately for me, "Music" did not show up in my list of apps, so that didn't work either.

I think I am just going to avoid the automatic syncing and instead manage my music manually. I hope that will prevent further "ghost songs."

- Jen

Jerrill's fix helped me too (so thanks Jerrill)!

Unfortunately, I still have to employ it regularly. It seems that, for no reason I can find (I've tried *everything*), I routinely (but randomly) get songs duplicated when my phone syncs with iTunes. One copy is legit and there; the other copy is the one with the greyed out circle. I don't *think* this actually affects playback, but I don't like that the track count, etc. and can't be sure since playlists no longer display number of tracks when playing from the phone. Jerrill's fix seems the only way to be sure and fix it. I just really wish I could figure out the root issue causing this; having to do this after nearly every sync is annoying.

Barb M., the "Raw File System" is basically just the inner software workings of the phone where it stores its stuff and has the file structure the phone can read. Think of it like all the files on your hard drive without the friendly names. iTunes is the interface you normally work through so you don't have to deal with the raw files instead.

It sounds like for whatever reason, your computer isn't recognizing your iPhone right, but I couldn't say for sure.

It sucked to delete everything but this is the first time in a long time I didnt have greyed out songs. Thanks!

This did not work - now I can't add anything new to my iPod!!! Thanks a lot!!! >:$

Not only did this NOT work, but now I can't edit my playlists and iTunes doesn't always sync correctly to my ipod!!! Now what do I do?!

Congrats to anyone who downloaded iFunBox, you now have a PC/Mac filled with Malware. I would uninstall immediately. Make sure you have Malwarebytes installed to remove the infections.