Help! I can't delete music files from my iPhone4!

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jt327gir

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I purchased my new iPhone4 yesterday, and I love it! But I have one nagging problem with it - I can copy music files to it from iTunes, and I can play those songs and create playlists on the phone itself, but I can't figure out how to delete music files from the phone. The music screen displayed when I click on the "iPhone" devices bar is opaque, so I cannot click anywhere on it, and there seems to be no way to delete files on the phone. I'm probably just an iPhone newbie who needs to be shown where the hidden menu item is and is probably something really simple, but I would be grateful for any pointers on this problem. Thanks in advance!
 

durrson

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There's no option to delete music directly from within the iPhone. (But you can with podcasts).

Connect to iTunes, navigate to music (iPhone's music, not your iTunes library) and delete it from there.
 

jt327gir

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....Connect to iTunes, navigate to music (iPhone's music, not your iTunes library) and delete it from there.
Thanks for your reply. I tried doing that, but I can't click on a song - when I try, nothing happens, as if that section is not available for editing or deleting.
 

iNickM

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Thanks for your reply. I tried doing that, but I can't click on a song - when I try, nothing happens, as if that section is not available for editing or deleting.
Two solutions:
If you are syncing your whole library with your iPhone, connect your iphone to your computer, in itunes, select your iphone under devices on the left sidebar. on the summary tab, there is a checkbox entitled [Manually manage music and videos), check this box and when you navigate to music under the iphone in devices, you should be able to remove specific songs from your library.

If you are not syncing all your music to the iPhone, you can create an iPhone playlist, which you can add or remove songs from, when you sync these changes to the iphone playlist will be updated on the iphone.
 

goodscoolxh

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I recommend you a ways of deleting the music files from your iPhone , just connect your iPhone to the computer , in itunes , you can delete the music files , you can't delete it from the phone .
 

bmwynn

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WhatDoctor

I too had this problem. Many thanks to iNick for the solution - but one more issue to watch - you have to use iTunes on the computer you used to add all of the music in the first place - or it will erase everything from your iphone. It does warn you it is about to do this - but please pay attention to the warning.
 

deiwtt773

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Delete and Change from ITunes

Hi Guys I am new here but have been searching for an answer for the same thing. You may have found this by now but here is how i change, modify track info, delete or add things to my iPhone 4. After connecting the your iPhone select it in iTunes. On the summary section there is a check box call "Manually Manange Music and Videos" turn this box on. Leave the sync box off on the Music section or it will turn off the other off. This will alow you to drag and drop things on and off your iPhone. You can also right click and delete or open the track info and make changes to the info. Every thing works the same as a file in the iTunes library

Hope this helps
 

Srikanthjj

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About Music Files

Hi,

After i connected my Phone to iTunes and I selected Manually Manage music and vidoes and clicked apply and after all my songs are gone my phone and i am not able to see them on itunes also and what can be done to retrive them

Thanks
Srikanth JJ
 

pappiti123

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Hello. This is an answer to the user above me. All you have to do is uncheck "manually manage" and check "sync music". That should do the trick!
 

a10fouru

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I have done all of this. With the "manually manage" selected, there is no music shown in the Music tab of my iphone. I have unchecked all songs in the itunes library, I have deleted all playlist, I have no albums, artists or genre checked. Still there are a few songs on the iphone 4...which seems impossible...

Anyone have any other ideas?
 

a10fouru

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I have done all of this. With the "manually manage" selected, there is no music shown in the Music tab of my iphone. I have unchecked all songs in the itunes library, I have deleted all playlist, I have no albums, artists or genre checked. Still there are a few songs on the iphone 4...which seems impossible...

Anyone have any other ideas?
If I back up the iPhone then choose restore...will that set back to "ground zero"? If so, then can I restore from back up to put all the apps and data back on there?
 

a10fouru

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Backing up. Then choosing a blank restore then restoring from backup does the trick. Creating playlist then deleting the songs didn't work. In fact, it put duplicates on the iPhone.
 

cofarrel

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Hey no worries...i just deleted all my purchased music from my iphone in seconds....Go to the Music tab in your iphone4 select Songs....instead of tapping the song and it playing, drag your finger across the song title to the right ->this will pull up a delete button...tap it and its off your phone.
 

zalathel

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I purchased my new iPhone4 yesterday, and I love it! But I have one nagging problem with it - I can copy music files to it from iTunes, and I can play those songs and create playlists on the phone itself, but I can't figure out how to delete music files from the phone. The music screen displayed when I click on the "iPhone" devices bar is opaque, so I cannot click anywhere on it, and there seems to be no way to delete files on the phone. I'm probably just an iPhone newbie who needs to be shown where the hidden menu item is and is probably something really simple, but I would be grateful for any pointers on this problem. Thanks in advance!
try with LongPathTool program. It helped me for the problem.
 

Marmotman

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it works!

I was able to delete an entire Christmas album compilation as some suggested above. I tapped on music, then albums and did the right swipe and voila, delete the album!:):)
 

Fit2theBone

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Thank you!

I sure hope that the originator of the question got the answers they needed because I sure did. I googled for help with this same problem, which directed me to this forum. Everything you said for a solution resolved my problem. I was able to delete the music and podcast from my iPhone device and checked to manage manually under Summary tab. What I can't figure out for the life of me is HOW those items got placed on my iPhone in the first place given the fact that I have over 1000 files in my iTunes library that did NOT transfer. Oh, well, at least I now know more on how to "manage" the files.

I just got a new macbook and I still have my PC and have decided to manage iTunes from the PC and not the macbook to keep it simple. Not sure if that's the best way, so if anyone else have a BETTER way, I'm all eyes and ears to learn more!

Thank you again for clear directions for this solution.
 

vigossqi

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Re:help

Three possible ways below:

1. Recategorize to Music
Keep your iTunesU files on a playlist. Select them by right-click and choose 'Get Info'. This will open up a set of tabs which contain the definitions for the selected file (multi-selection is allowed). Go to the 'Options' tab and change the category from iTunesU to Music. Save the change and now the files show up in the Music folder in the PC interface. Now you can select and delete the files.

In case you have iTunesU files that are no longer on a playlist, you can use your iPod to stick them back there. Disconnect the iPod from the PC, find the files on iPod in Music and give them a long click with the wheel center. You will be offered to option to add the files to the 'On-The-Go'-list. Agree to put the files on that list and then connect to PC again. The 'On-The-Go'-list appears in the PC interface and from here you can select the files and change their category to Music.

Drawback:
- Some iTunesU files cannot have their category changed - they remain hidden and therefore cannot be deleted.
- iTunesU videos cannot be changed to music. They can be changed to Podcast or Video, but they still will not show up in the PC interface under these folders - they remain hidden and therefore cannot be deleted.

2. Use the file system to access iPod
In stead of addressing the iPod through iTunes, connect the iPod to the PC and browse to it through the file system. Find the removable drive that is your iPod. It sits, for example under E: and then browse through to E:\iPod_Control\Music. Note that this is a hidden folder, so you will have to set your file browsing to show hidden folders. E:\iPod_Control\Music will have a number of subfolders, each containing music files with encrypted names. The trick is to read around the encryption and identify exactly which file is which and then delete the iTunesU files you want to.

Drawbacks:
- This is difficult. You have to know what you are doing and be able to identify the files. In addition, this is a long and bothersome process.
- Your iPod will soon afterwards require a 'soft' reset as its datafile system has gone mildly corrupted. You have deleted files without the interference of iTunes and so -I guess- some of the indexes have gone wrong. Only after the reset the clogged memory will have been released. There may be some data loss though - I had to redo the synching of my iPod with regards to pictures.
Bottom-line: do not do this unless you have to, you know what you are doing and you can handle the system hick-ups that follow.

3. Hard reset
Restore your iPod to factory settings.

Drawback:
- Not only do you lose your iTunesU files, you lose all the others as well
- You also lose customized settings to the iPod
Bottom-line: this method is clean and effective, but it takes some work afterwards in order to shape your iPod menus and settings back to where you like them and put back all the files you want on the pod.
 
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