How To Remove Music & Movies From Just iPhone

Question

How To Remove Music & Movies From Just iPhone

How can I remove music and movies I no longer want on my iPhone in iTunes without removing the same titles from other devices synced to the same computer and iTunes account?

I used to be able to select several items I no longer wanted on my phone and delete them, clearing up memory space. This is no longer an option; I can't even drag anything to the trash bin. Rather I am forced to tend to each file individually, and even on "manual" it tells me it will remove that same title from everything. This alarms me, and since I don't want to suddenly delete something I paid for or uploaded, remove anything from my iPad or make a movie invisible to AppleTV, I have to leave these files my device where it takes up valuable space.

Suddenly this has all become so confusing.

OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Jan 23, 2016 4:04 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 23, 2016 4:16 PM in response to happylilvampyr

I agree. I know apple and others will say you can Manually manage music and Videos, but we all know that there are times iTunes decides to Sync and clear out these tracks we want to keep on our devices. It's always been a bit of a hit and miss with me. I suggest you press Delete song and just Manually download it again. Trail and error I' afraid, regardless of apples attempts to rectify this issue, it always comes back to bite me! that being said, it should remain on your device after you red download it.

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 23, 2016 6:31 PM in response to happylilvampyr

If you are using the Manually manage music and videos setting on the iPhone, its onboard library of songs is separate from your iTunes library. It is not being "synchronized" with the computer's iTunes library by iTunes.

The second screenshot seems to be the dialog that comes up when you delete the downloaded copy of a song from your iTunes library (for a song that is available from iCloud). It is saying you can still play the song (by streaming it from iCloud), but you will no longer have a local copy of the song file on your computer. Therefore, devices that synchronize with this computer will have that song removed. The key word is "synchronize." If your iPhone is set to Manually manage music and videos, it is not being synchronized with iTunes library on the computer. So you can remove the local copy of song from computer (click Delete Song in that dialog); the song will not be removed from your iPhone.

NOTE: If you're use the Sync Music setting for the iPhone (not Manually manage...), then iTunes is keeping your iPhone and iTunes library "in sync"; deleting the local copy of a song from iTunes library DOES delete that song from iPhone (the next time it syncs).

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 23, 2016 10:17 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

The second screen shot is with the manual section applied. I even did a back-up to make sure it stuck.

Also, there is no longer a 'delete song' option (hitting the delete button also does nothing). With it being set to manual, the only option I have to remove the song from my device is still to remove it from every device.

Reply

Answer 4

Jan 23, 2016 10:38 PM in response to happylilvampyr

What is the actual question? You said in original post

How can I remove music and movies I no longer want on my iPhone in iTunes without removing the same titles from other devices synced to the same computer and iTunes account?

Then you said on previous post

With it being set to manual, the only option I have to remove the song from my device is still to remove it from every device.

That's not true. If your iPhone is set to manually manage, you use iTunes to manually remove the song from iPhone (which has nothing to do with removing the song from your iTunes library). The song in your iTunes library is not affected, and the song on your other devices is not affected. Are you asking how to remove the song from the iPhone manually?

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 24, 2016 3:02 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

My second screen shot is the warning I get when I try to remove the song from my device, even though my device is set to manage music and video manually. This only happened after I updated iTunes before backing my phone up since the older version I was running wouldn't recognize my device.

So it sounds like this a) shouldn't be happening when set to manual management, and b) there's a bug in the latest version iTunes. I did just now plug my phone back in, again, and the manual selection is unchecked, which it wasn't after I backed up yesterday. When I checked it again and hit apply, now it's warning me it's going to erase everything on my phone because it's linked to another machine. This is turning into a bigger issue I need Support to fix.

Reply