Greyed Out iPod

[dbauereis]

When I connect my ipod to the Mac, all of the songs are "greyed" out on the ipod. They look fine on the mac. The songs play just fine on the ipd. But I cannot delete, etc on the ipod since they are greyed out.

What can I do?

Dave

[ipodphoto30]

i'm not sure what you mean by greyed out on your ipod.

[honeybee1236]

Welcome to iLounge forums. You need to either put the iPod on manual - see the section on managing your music manually here:
http://www.mac.com/1/learningcenter/index-sub.html?go=ip+ipod
or
You can delete music directly from the iTunes main library and it will be deleted from the iPod when you auto sync it
and/or
Go to iTunes preferences>iPod while it's connected and set the iPod Options to "update checked songs only" box and when you sync it will update the songs that are checked and the ones that aren't checked will not be added to the iPod library.

[studogvetmed]

Welcome to the lounge!

This is likely because you are on automatic update. In this case you delete songs from the iPod by deleting them from iTunes and resyncing.

If you want direct control of the iPod you must change to manual mode.

For mild control use the "update selected playlists and songs only" instead of "update all" if you change to manual mode you will lose back communication of ratings and playcounts from the iPod to iTunes.

You can read more about syncing of the iPod under our articles section in iPod 101/201

Edit: Honeybee, fastest poster on the lounge :)

[dbauereis]

Thank you very much for the help. I have always had the ipod on automatic update, and thought I could dtill delete on the ipod itself. But maybe I am mistaken.

Some of the things I want to delete are audiobooks that I want off of the ipod, but to remain in itunes. Is there something I should do to achieve this?

[studogvetmed]

Ah yes, there is.

Forgot to mention. In iPod preferences set it up for "update checked songs only" You can then uncheck songs in iTunes that you don't want on the iPod.

the only downside of this is that the songs will no longer play natively in iTunes you will have to tell them to play and they will otherwise be ignored in iTunes as well.

Cheers,
Stu

[dbauereis]

Stu, again thanks for your help, looking forward to making the right choices tonight.