iTunes - "Manage Devices" remove button grayed out

To get rid of a mac or PC, you need to deauthorise all computers, then authorise the computers you have again.

You can only deauthorise all computers once a year.

1. Launch iTunes on a Mac or PC,

2. Click Store -> View Account and enter your login details if required.

3. Look under summary, there is a computer authorisation label, and an option to deautnorise all computers. If the option isn't therer, you'll have to wait a year from the last time you did this.

4. Choose that option and follow any prompts.

To authorise a computer

1. Launch iTunes on the computer to be authorised.

2. Click Store -> Authorise This Computer and follow the prompts.

One final word, the 90 day minimum for associating a device to an iTunes account only applies if the account is different from the previous account. If you are associating a device to the same account as the last time, the 90 day minimum does not apply.

UPDATE: After I removed my device via the instructions in this thread's answer, and then added it back in, the Remove button is no longer grayed out.

I'm having this problem with one device greyed out. Does anybody have a solution. The above method did not work for me.

Thanks

Yes! This worked. Easy fix.

1. Launch iTunes on a Mac or PC,

2. Click Store -> View Account and enter your login details if required.

3. Look under summary, there is a computer authorisation label, and an option to deautnorise all computers. If the option isn't therer, you'll have to wait a year from the last time you did this.

4. Choose that option and follow any prompts.

To authorise a computer

1. Launch iTunes on the computer to be authorised.

2. Click Store -> Authorise This Computer and follow the prompts.

I have experienced the same issue. Of course, no real help from this line of posting - every time we all think that we have learned to deal with Apple and its quirks, they throw another one at us. But I thought I would share my experience - hopefully it helps someone. We are a family of 6 so I regularly log on and clear all of the 10 "authorized" devices so that all of our current devices are working. 5 were not greyed out - took all of them off. Found 5 of my devices greyed out. One of them is my daughter's iPhone which I just upgraded. I know that her new phone is not "authorized" because that is the reason that I was doing this maintenance. Yes - I am lucky that I have her old phone. I grab it, power it on and went to the app store. Scroll to the bottom, and where you will see "Apple ID: "aaaaaa@aaaaa.com". I clicked on that and you have choices "View Apple ID, Sign Out, iForgot, Cancel". I clicked "Sign Out". Now I went back to my account details on our iMac and looked at the list of devices and the greyed-out "remove" was now NOT greyed out any long. I removed it and I am good on that one. I am assuming that the remaining 4 "grayed" out ones are "gray" because those devices are logged in.

Now c'mon on Apple, are you kidding? How could you not give us administrative control to "kick off" devices? This is insane. At a minimum Apple should provide us a 1 time per year ability to "kick off all devices" like the "deauthorize all" used for a computer. Anyway, I have no solution for those who get rid of a device without signing out first.

idg1 wrote:

Just spoke to a Sr. Apple Advisor. Apple did make changes to the system and removal from iTunes is in the device. According to him the iTune management of devices will be phased out. "Rouge" devices (such as my replaced iPod) will eventually fall off the system, I assume due to inactivity. Interesting that the two advisors I dealt with (one on email and the first one on the phone) were fairly clueless about the change.

I'm not sure this is the correct answer. I've found that any new devices I add can be removed from iTunes. It's only older added devices that can't be. If I remove all the devices I have on the device themselves and then add them back in, I can then remove them via the iTunes account info page.

That doesn't help with devices you don't own or phantom devices created by doing restores as new. Those devices appear to be stuck there permanently. It's similar to how devices you erase or restore without signing out of iCloud still show up on the iCloud.com settings page. It's possible they will disappear after 3 months though.

Go to https://appleid.apple.com --> sign in and you will be able to remove old devices without actually having the device.

There is no option to remove devices in that link.

How does an old device remain, when i had erased all contents and sold it off after factory reset!😮

Just an update. It looks like newly added devices can be removed within a certain time frame (maybe a day or two) after which they can't be removed.

Seems like a bug or design flaw to me.

Hello AdamTheGreat,

I have this same issue, and I have now wiped my old iPhone 5 S and want to send it away to be recycled. I checked the terms and conditions for payment from the recycling company and it states:

I have removed the device in the Cloud but it is still showing in iTunes do you know if this device can still be used with another ID.

A bit of new info from here: View and remove associated devices in iTunes - Apple Support

"If you can't click Remove (the button is grayed out), the device that you're trying to remove has connected to your Apple ID within the past 30 days. Sign out of the iTunes Store on that device, then try to remove it."

So this partly contradicts the marked "answer" above. Rogue devices will NOT automatically fall off, but will become eligible to be removed after 30 days. But if someone has your rogue device and is actually using it it will never time out.

In my case I had 8 devices grayed out and two not. I removed those two. But this only helps a little. Some of the others are duplicates of the same device. Since that device keeps connecting I suspect that I will never get past the thirty days for either copy of the device.

So it's still broken, but makes a little more sense.

I should also note that the suggestion of going to https://appleid.apple.com/ and removing the devices doesn't work for me. To remove a device from that list you click on it and select "Remove iPhone". See Check your Apple ID device list to see where you're signed in - Apple Support. But this appears to only be relevant to iCloud, not to iTunes or Apple Music. I brought the list from nine devices down to two, but then when I checked iTunes it still had eight devices and all were grayed out.

Just had my phone warranty replaced at Apple store. they didn't say anything about signing out - only turning off "find my iPhone". This would have been helpful to know, rather than waiting on one of the devices to fall off.

I know that this is an old post but I have just came upon this problem myself and did a little research and found this statement on it:

If you can't click Remove (the button is grayed out), the device that you're trying to remove has connected to your Apple ID within the past 30 days. Sign out of the iTunes Store on that device, then try to remove it.

I can see the option on my device in the iTunes app (From your iDevice, go to the AppStore (or iTunes) and scroll to the bottom. Click on your iTunes ID and select View Apple ID. You'll then see an option under iTunes in the cloud to "Remove This Device".)

--As quoted by _AdamtheGreat_ below.

Ok so this is what I did to remove a device form my account. Login to your account via WEB BROWSER, view devices, select the one you want to remove then click remove. Done.