iTunes 12 can't delete artwork

Alright so what you do is you open up the "Get Info" folder and click on the existing artwork. You then hold the fn key on the bottom left of the keyboard and then hit "delete" at the same time. Your welcome 🙂

Hope this help I just figured out, add the artwork you want for the song, you will have one that is in the "gallery" and the one you wanted in your "album artwork", now you can move it from one gallery to the other and it keeps highlighted and can be erased only with ctrl+x

i figured out how to remove the artworks, select the albums, songs you want to change the artwork, get info, go to the artwork tab then click on the artwotk icon on top left, it will highlight it then just press delete and click ok..

I just figured this out recently and it might seem like a silly method but I feel it works way faster than trying to highlight the image and clicking ctrl-x, since u have to keep doing it repeatedly and hoping that the box gets highlighted. Simply click on the unwanted artwork and drag it onto ur desktop. Then when u go back to the song info page, u will see that the box is already highlighted. Be careful not to click on the same image again, but u can click on any area of the page to bring it to the top again. Then simply hit Backspace. After that u can delete all the unwanted images on ur desktop. Dun ask me why iTunes12 can only allow it to be highlighted definitely when that is done, cuz I find it stupid too. But I hope this 'ridiculous' method helps here. Cheers!

To delete artwork for any one album:

1) right click on the album

2) Go to "Get Info"

3) Click on the artwork in the upper left corner

4) Hit "delete"

If you want to delete ALL of your artwork in iTunes:

1) Go to Edit and click "select all"

2) repeat process above

Took me quite a bit of poking around to figure this out. Apple should fix the problem!

The answer about clicking in the upper left corner seems to work sometimes but it is very touchy. I was able to delete the unwanted artwork after adding a new one by simple clicking it then cntl-x. Hope this helps.

After reading every response in this post, here is what I found to be successful:

Go to original file location (original mp3 file)

Select all files affected, go to Properties, and ensure that under Attributes, Read Only is UNCHECKED.

Finalize that change by selecting Apply followed by OK.

Go back into iTunes and proceed to delete the artwork any way you prefer, and add any new artwork you would like.

Worked for me.

try to create your own AAC version of the file stored in the iTunes music folder and change the cover to the new files

"try to create your own AAC version of the file"

Not a good idea - converting MP3 to AAC reduces the audio quality, and should never be necessary to resolve issues related to artwork. As previous posts have indicated, failures to make persistent changes to embedded artwork (unless the files are .WAV, which cannot include images) result either from the files being read-only or there being a conflict with Windows' permissions settings.

I can understand why users want to keep art. I can understand why users don't want the art at all, because they only wanted the music.

But I don't understand Apple at all, why it cannot leave us, there, that choice.

Everyone knows "Invictus", movie or poem. Apple rewrite the last lines:

"I am the master of your fate:

I am the captain of your tunes"

Every version of iTunes since 2009 have brought more misery for serious music lovers.

Sorry for this outburst - as I have no solution either and I don't want you to bore with so many other things that went wrong with iTunes, with Apple software.

Allegri's "Miserere" is just written for such occasions 😟

"But I don't understand Apple at all, why it cannot leave us, there, that choice."

But you do have that choice ...

• Almost all digitally-purchased music (in mp3 or AAC format) has embedded artwork. You can choose to keep, change or delete this.
• When you import music from CD you can use the Get Album Artwork function to retrieve matching artwork from the iTunes Store (automatically if enabled using Edit > Preferences > Store). Again, you can choose not to use this, or to change or delete any artwork.

The only artwork-related functions that are not present in iTunes 12 are the right-click > Copy and right-click > Paste options that were available in earlier releases. Otherwise there is a range of methods that allow you to add, modify and delete artwork images as you wish them to be.

I finally figured out how to do this in iTunes 12 on Mac.

Select all the music you want, then right click > "Get Info" and tab to the Artwork tab.

Normally you can't click the Artwork to delete. To work around this, hit "Add Artwork" and add any photo. The important part: once it's added DO NOT HIT OK. You can now select the photo you selected (blue border will show up), then hit "Delete."

Then hit "OK"

iTunes will register the delete operation for all your songs.

I can't comment on what may work or not work on a Mac, but in iTunes 12.1.2 for Windows such a workaround is not necessary. To delete artwork from multiple items:

• Select them all
• Right-click > Get Info
• Select Artwork tab
• Click on the image thumbnail at the top left of the editor window - it will be outlined in blue:
  
  (you may need to click two or three times before the selection is applied).
• Press the backspace or delete key - a green checkmark will appear in the corner of the thumbnail:
  
• Click OK - all artwork will be deleted from the selected items.

Works perfectly, thanks.

OK. Mac user here since 1986. I have over 600 G of music with over 1000 playlists. I have used iTunes since it began. I have tried every method listed in this thread and all I am willing to from other random Googling. I am here to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to replace existing album artwork completely in my 12.5.3.17 version with the most current version of Sierra (not recommended). I am going to painstakingly outline what I mean:

I have a playlist from Archive.org GD 1980-05-07. This group of tracks comes with artwork denoting Mason Taylor tagged on the files. I have my playlist and album displayed in a view as songs. I select all. I get info for all. I select the artwork tab. I highlight the artwork. I delete, getting the green check mark denoting multiple tracks being changed. There is no longer any artwork in evidence. I add my new artwork. It appears on the TRACKS ONLY. Above the text/header "album by artist" with the album information the prior artwork still appears no matter what you do.

If artwork is blank for a track & album in a playlist from the get-go and you add artwork, it can not be changed from any of the menus to delete the artwork as it appears in the top/album section as described above. New image will display next to the tracks regardless of the type of view you select etc, but it will not change the image at the header. It does not matter if you exit the info box, iTunes completely or any other combination. This is so lacking. Each iteration since about 2012 appears as if it was only partially completed by the developer. This is in evidence across all the new apps, which we do in fact pay for as that cost is included in the price of the devices we have all purchased.