Deleted songs keep reappearing in iPhone library

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Level 1

9 points

Deleted songs keep reappearing in iPhone library

I keep deleting songs (and one video) from my iphone, only for them to reappear again after reconnecting my device.

Not only that; when they do reappear, they're greyed out with a small dotted circle next to them. For the record, they're not actually on my phone, they are like ghost files.

Even though they are doing no harm, I'd really like to permanently delete them and never see them again - how do I do this?

Thanks,

David

iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 10.3.3

Posted on Sep 17, 2017 1:19 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

2eq Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 18, 2017 2:48 PM in response to rose_10

Hi Sarah,

First off, thank you so much for your response, I really appreciate the time you took to help me out 🙂

I'm afraid the above doesn't fix it. For a start my phone does have space to sync these files. In fact - and this is part of the problem I feel - the files don't actually exist on my computer, or in my itunes library. I bought / downloaded these a long long time ago, on a different computer and iPhone. This also might be part of the problem.

For the record, if I right-click on the files, I don't have any option to redownload them. And to add to the confusion, some of the songs that are greyed out are in my library (both on my Macbook and my iPhone) as perfectly normal files (see the first screenshot below), and some of the files were free on iTunes and are not available any more!

The second link in your reply also doesn't apply to me as I'm already manually managing my music (see the second screenshot below). If I delete my iPhone library and reupload all my music, the greyed out files will just reappear.

Do you have any other thoughts on how to fix this?

Thanks,

David

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Answer 2

rose_10

Community Specialist

Sep 18, 2017 1:40 PM in response to 2eq

Hi 2eq,

Thanks for visiting the Apple Support Communities! From your post, I see that you have some songs that you deleted from your iPhone, but that try to resync when you connect your iPhone to iTunes. Instead of completing the sync, though, the songs appear in grey with a dotted circle next to the song. I'm happy to help!

When you see the grey songs with a dotted circle, it is because there is not enough space on your iPhone to sync these items. To resolve this, you have a couple of options.

First, you can free up some space on your iPhone to make room for the songs, following steps here: Check the storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch .

If you do wish to permanently remove those songs from your iPhone, you would want to remove them from the iTunes sync process. The following article will review how to add (and thus how to remove) content from syncing: Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes on your computer using USB .

If you choose to sync all your music, you may want to set up a playlist with only the songs you do want to sync. If you already sync a playlist, try removing them from that playlist, or creating and syncing a new playlist without those tracks.

Cheers!

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Answer 3

Lindsay_B.

Community Specialist

Sep 18, 2017 4:10 PM in response to 2eq

Thanks for the update and additional information, David.

Since the steps provided haven't helped, the next recommendation that can be made would be to get in touch with Apple Support directly for additional assistance. You can do that here: Contact Apple Support .

Have a wonderful day!

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