When I downloaded iOS 7.0.1 all my songs appeared on my phone. I selected Settings > Music and turned "Show All Music" off. There are still songs that appear in my music files. I cannot drag my finger across them to get the Delete button like the other songs in my phone. How do I get rid of this music?!
iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.2, Songs won't delete
I just spent about an hour figuring this out and instead of deleting your whole Music app and reinstalling it I have a different solution and you won't have to plug the phone in your computer.
First note the songs that are giving you problems. Next settings>music and TURN ON show all music. Go back to your music app and the songs you don't want should actually now have a cloud next to their name. Hit the cloud and download the song. Once you have finished all the songs you want to get rid of go back into settings and TURN OFF show all music. Go back to music app and now you will be able to "slide delete" those pesky songs you don't want anymore.
Somehow the song was there but it wasn't being recognized until you download it from the cloud... The cloud is stupid anyways, nobody even knows what it is!!!!
Cheers
THANK YOU! I knew there had to be a solution.
Do you use your iTunes library on your PC? If so, let me know what t it does to those songs when you plug it in and sync.. I have had TV episodes on my phone, when I plug my phone in, it gives me the grayed out circle. When I delete them manually, and my phone syncs, they come back.
I usually download songs from my phone. Beginning to look like it's a bigger problem using the cloud. You would think itunes and iCloud would communicate a little better.
Thanks; I have the same problem. I just downloaded the entire album and then turn around and delete it. Works well, though awkwardly. The phone does not even indicate there is any music; that is puzzling.
I think I have figured it out. The files you see are cached files.
If you have an app such as Battery Doctor ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-doctor-must-have-battery/id615987910?mt= 8 ) that cleans and optimizes your iPhone, or if you have an app that will clean up junk, memory and cache files, run the app. Those phantom files then disappear.
I plugged my iPhone into the computer and noted the size of each file.
I then streamed an album.
The file sizes remained the sam.
I switched to Airplane mode.
The music was still there and playable.
I ran Battery Doctor and cleared out the caches.
Voila! The phantom files disappeared.
They are not taking up any space other than space reserved for cached files.
go to Setting, Music then uncheck ''Show All Music''
You can actually do this one of two ways ,
if you open iTunes up on your iPhone device if you swipe right on your chosen track it will delete it from your device and will save in your iTunes cloud storage.
To completely remove the track from your iTunes completely this will need to be done through your iTunes on your PC or Mac ,
Im unfamiliar with PC but i know with Mac its a case of dragging and dropping so when your library is open drag the track into the bin icon on your Dock and this will remove it completely from your library .
Tip: when you open iTunes on the top bar you can click on the different options to manage the content on your device such as music Apps and Photos and technically choose what you want synced to your device .
I have tried every option listed here and it works...until I sync again, then it will put them all back on my phone and will not download the music I want to put there unless I follow these steps again. I have my itunes account set to only sync a specific music file, but it won't download any of those songs unless I purchased them directly from itunes. I am really getting tired of having to deal with this. The songs that keep showing up are not songs I want on my phone, and are not just songs that I purchased. It has several songs that I downloaded from a personal CD that we have at home, they are okay songs, but not anything that I would purposely pay for, yet it keeps putting these songs on my phone; all on the cloud.
I don't even want the cloud, I do not care for it and I don't need it. I tried to delete that account, but then it warns me that all of my data stored there will be lost. This is not right. I am really tired of this. I am ready to switch to a different smart phone and give up on Apple.
I just found this: http://helpios7.com/remove-songs/ If this does not work, I am trading my phone in. Hope you all have better luck than I have had.
This is exactly how I feel and the problem I have!!! I wonder if anyone from Apple looks at these discussions to know what people are having problems with and will try to fix? With the new update it seems they are making it tougher to turn stuff "off".
now on iOS8 - I have attempted the following in multiple combinations with limited success, if any, since iOS7:
The end result is constantly the same: only 8 "songs" on the device from iTunes, but at least 30 songs still on the device in Music (the 8 "songs" are voice memos and ringtones which should be there).
This is what I've noticed for the songs on the device: they are the songs downloaded in the background to play from iTunes Match, where I have more songs than I can fit on the phone. There are times I've played so much music over such a period of time that my device fills up, and can cause issues when trying to play music (it "plays" the music in the background, but with no sound) because the device is full.
This solution worked the first time I tried it, but the problem with it is you shouldn't have to do this to clear unwanted songs (or anything, for that matter) from your device. PS: I refuse to do this solution again because of stated "problem" with it.
Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings (or Erase All Content and Settings)
This solution also worked, is better, but is still needlessly complicated (I will take you through this step-by-step for what I did, with my music setup (iTunes Match, no music intended on device), with assumption for how to do basic tasks already known but specifics for Settings not)
If what happened with me happens here, and you have ONE song left, It is [likely] because it is the song selected in "Now Playing". The solution here is Repeat Steps 4-5 for this song, turn off "Show All Music" (Settings -> Music) and delete, from the Music app, this song. Success will be a message saying "No Content" as soon as the song is deleted.
The problem is that background downloads cannot be deleted directly. Apple: somehow PLEASE give us a way to delete background downloads of our music or automatically delete them after we close the app.
This was the first response in this thread that made any sense and actually worked. Thank you!
After the breakup of my marriage, I discovered that iTunes loved a certain artist (I'll call him Joe Cool) that my former husband had loaded into my iTunes once upon a time. It seemed that every shuffle landed on Joe Cool and I went from sort of liking him to downright cringing every time he came on. He reminded me of all the wrong things that had gone on in the marriage and it became painful to experience this music over and over again. I would skip to the next song (frequently) and I went so far as to give every one of his songs a low rating. ITunes, in all of its heartlessness, didn't care. I would get in my car, turn it on, and there would be Joe Cool singing away again. Skip to the next song, listen for one or two songs, bam! There's Joe Cool singing again. I'm not exaggerating. This was every single day. I finally decided to delete this particular artist once and for all. First I tried to do it from my phone, but there was no obvious way to do that. Then I deleted him from my iTunes on my laptop and re-synced my phone. Aha! This would surely make him gone. Nope. There he was, singing away again the very next morning. Time for Google to point me in the right direction, because surely I was doing something wrong here. I tried every suggestion on this forum (and some on other sites): Show Music on, Show Music off, swipe to delete song by song, reload and delete. I wasn't subscribed to iTunes Match and I didn't connect my music to iCloud. Nothing worked. Until I came upon the idea of deleting all of my music and starting again with a fresh sync from my laptop. That sounded like a plan that couldn't fail. So I did that. And it worked! No evidence of Joe Cool was on my phone or in my iTunes, I could stop cringing and worrying about this once and for all. Hurrah!
Until I got into my car this morning. And guess who started playing? Yep. Joe Cool, very first song. I picked up my phone and stared at it in disbelief. There he was, in all of his iTunes Original glory, and all indications showing me that iTunes was preparing to play 8 of his songs. I started crying. This is so unfair, Apple. iTunes tried to sneak around my plans and told me that this was an 'unknown artist" but when I looked in my artist file, there he was again. Tormenting me.
I paid $650 for this phone and I fear I might throw it out the window soon. This is taking up too much of my time and energy, Apple. Any other suggestions are most appreciated. Until then, I will avoid playing music altogether and try not to develop a twitch.
Ok, I just found this answer on another Apple forum and I think it might have worked. Thank you to Dumb_luck 101 for the help:
Dumb_luck101 Sep 28, 2013 2:19 PM
Re: I didn't have this song on my phone before I upgraded to ios7. keeps reappearing, icloud based. in response to zsapper
Ok , not 100% on exactly how but I was able to remove old songs from the cloud.
Try this first , it's easier: Settings, Icloud, turn off documents and data and delete the account.
Go back to: Settings, Itunes& App Store, tap the appleId name and sign out. Go back to: Icloud, log back in and deny when asked to merge info with the cloud ,make sure documents and data is turned off.
Go back to: Itunes& App Store, and sign in. See if that worked, if not I'll tell you the "long" version.
Good Luck
Here's what you need to do to get those songs off your phone. Connect to iTunes and re-download those songs that you can't get ride of. Once those songs are put back on your phone correctly you should be able to just swipe and delete. The files were corrupted somehow. But reinstalling them seems to do the trick.
That's actually a wikiHow article that was mentioned earlier in this thread. Maybe give credit where it's due? But yes, it works. This was an irritating problem, but the wikiHow solution works great.
Can't delete songs from iPhone 5
