How to remove a song from Apple Music playlist 2020

With over 45 million songs, Apple Music is among the richest music streaming services out there. iOS users can find virtually any song theyre looking for and add it to their library. As a result, it wouldnt come as a surprise if your Apple Music library gets cluttered with time.

Depending on how much you enjoy streaming music, you mightve accumulated hundreds or thousands of songs, most of which you dont listen to anymore. At this point, you might be considering the idea of wiping the slate clean.

Thankfully, Apple offers features that let you do this. They just might not be where you expect them to be.

Bulk Deleting Songs on Apple Music

Mass delete is a handy feature in many situations. Getting rid of songs that you dont want to listen to anymore is one of them. Luckily, when it comes to this, iOS isnt lacking.

The first thing worth mentioning is that the feature cant be found within the Music app. This is what creates confusion and makes people doubt whether the feature even exists in the first place. Well, it does, and heres how to access it:

Open iPhone Storage

Open the Settings app, and go to General > iPhone Storage. Here youll see all your apps and information on how much storage they take up.

Click Edit

Scroll down until you find the Music app and tap on it. Youll get the information on its storage amount and the options for managing it.

Next to Recommendations, youll see the Edit Tap on it and youll get the option to delete all songs or by specific artists.

Tap the red icon on the left to delete all songs, then confirm the deletion.

If you dont have that many songs, you can choose to delete the songs by specific artists within this menu. If you really want to empty your library entirely, you can to it easily.

So what about the Music app itself? Is there a way to delete songs from within it?

Deleting Songs from the Music App

As mentioned, you cant mass delete songs when youre in the Music app. However, it lets you delete entire playlists and albums, which may come close in terms of convenience if youre in the habit of grouping all your songs.

Lets take deleting an album as an example. You can do this in just a few simple steps:

Open your Library and navigate to Albums.

Find the album that you want to delete and use 3D Touch by pressing a bit harder on the album. Youll see a pop-up menu with various options.

Tap Delete from Library and confirm the deletion.

You can also do this for artists, playlists, albums, and individual songs. The deletion process is straightforward and doesnt take up much time at all even if you have a lot of songs.

Offloading the Music App

Before iOS 11, every app could either be installed or completely removed. With the release of this update, Apple rolled out a handy feature that meets these two options somewhere in the middle.

If you go to iPhone Storage > Music, youll see the Offload App option. So what does it do? While uninstalling an app nukes its data and binary, offloading removes just the app without removing all the data associated with it. Its then transferred to iPhone backup to free up the storage on the phone.

This means all your music will still be buried somewhere in your iPhone and even the Music app icon will still be there. Once you tap on it, the app will be reinstalled and with it, all your data.

This is perfect for when you need to free up some space but dont want to lose your music forever. You can then work on freeing up some storage space (or even get a new phone). After that, you can bring all your music back with one tap.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Apple Music take up a lot of space on my phone?

Apple Music the app doesnt take up much space at all. Its the songs youve downloaded that can eat up storage space. If your device storage is full, removing songs can definitely help to free up the space you need to perform updates, take pictures, and download new apps.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eOne way to check your Apple Music storage is to go to Settingsu003eGeneralu003eAbout. This will give you a breakdown of whats taking up the most space. Look for Songs to determine if there are a lot or only a few that have been downloaded.

Is there a way to automatically offload Apple Music?

Yes, under device storage there is an option to Offload Unused Apps. Toggle this on and your iPhone will automatically dump unnecessary information that you dont use often.

If I delete songs from Apple Music, can I ever recover them?

Unlike iTunes which has a Purchase History tab, Apple Music does not. This means that you wont have the option to quickly access one tab to re-download everything from the past. You can add any music you purchased from iTunes by tapping on the cloud icons, but Apple Music downloads wont be available this way.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eYou can go to the Settingsu003eMusic on your phone and turn on Sync Library (this option is only available when youre subscribing to Apple Music. Sync Library will show all of your downloaded music on all of your Apple devices.

The Final Word

iOS is widely regarded as the worlds best operating system for mobile devices is the fact that Apple really thinks about and optimize a single aspect of its functions and processes. As you can see, there are different options for getting rid of all your songs, either temporarily or permanently.

Truth be told, not having such options would be unimaginable, as we all know how reluctant Apple is about allowing 3rd party apps access to the operating system. At least theres no reason for this when it comes to the Music app.