Deleting iTunes Tracks from Playlists
I don’t know why it bugged me so much, but I always hated the fact that there was no easy (a.k.a. obvious) way to delete tracks from my playlist AND my library at the same time.
You know the situation: you’re listening to your playlist and come across a song that should never have been added to your library in the first place, let alone your playlist. Perhaps the song was ripped incorrectly, came from an ex-girlfriend you’d rather forget, or maybe you just developed a deep hate for the song’s melody - but whatever the reason is, the song just doesn’t belong in your playlist or your library.
Pressing ‘delete’ only solves half the problem - deleting it from your playlist. Deleting the song from your library takes another few steps. Sure, call me lazy, but being forced to navigate back to the library, search for the doomed song, and then deleting it is just too much work.
Enter the “secret” key combination: Option + Command + Delete
This secret key combination will not only delete a song from your playlist, but also ask if you want to delete the song from your hard drive as well. Problem solved.
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#1 Tomasz says:Alt + Delete is similar but in this case it first asks if you want to remove the item from the playlist (assuming you haven’t ticked the box so that it does not ask again) and then asks if you want to keep the file or move it to the trash.
#2 Debbie says:If I could only remember these keyboard commands when I want to accomplish this!
#3 Fred Brunel says:iPhoto has the exact same problem. Pressing ‘delete’ on a photo remove it only from your album.
Did this key combination works for iPhoto?
#4 piminnowcheez says:I love you.
This has been one of those low-grade annoyances that constantly comes up and irritates, but doesn’t quite cross the threshold of making me mad enough to set everything aside until I can find a fix for it. Now, you have set me free, my brother. Bless you.
#5 drew says:actually, just option+delete will do the same thing… i’ve been doing that for a while for the podcasts that i’ve heard. my playlist has podcasts that have a play count greater than 0, i select them all and hit option+delete. gone.
#6 Seth says:You can also just drag it to the trash icon in the dock. I’m sure the Apple engineers thought it was “the Mac thing to do.” I discovered it before the keyboard shortcut. (Although, I prefer keyboard tricks over mouse ones)
#7 Nik says:Thank you so much for this. This has bugged me so much.
#8 nosugrefneb says:Anyone have a way to delete tracks from the library without having to confirm the deletion of the file? That bugs me so much more.
Hello, I’m deleting it from my library. Of course I want to delete the file as well.
#9 Ben says:Amazing. You are a saint.
THANK YOU!
#10 Jono says:Yea, I press Option+Delete & then when the confirmation window pops up the M key (for Move to Trash).
#11 Jacob says:Thank you! Works even in smart playlist, which allows me to build that not-played-in-5-years-and-very-low-bitrate playlist and then delete everything I want to get rid of at once! Excellent!
#12 Andreas says:Thanks a lot! This is a life saver! Now if only I can remember the shortcut…
#13 cr1sp says:As of iTunes 7.3 Option+Delete also works in the library main view, not only in playlists. (Before you had to press Command+Delete in the library view).
#14 nosugrefneb says:That is pretty good, Jono…thanks a lot.
#15 mikelite says:when deleting tracks from my iPod, I like to change the title to ” (delete) “. It shows up at the top, when I sort my library by Artist. I get the ridiculous satisfaction of deleting a massive chunk at once.
#16 ljun says:They should really give an option to make this the default! I ALWAYS want to delete the song off my computer when deleting from playlist.
As someone mentioned earlier, does anyone know if there’s an equivalent for iPhoto?
#17 Jono says:You can also set up a trigger in Quicksilver so it’s 1 hotkey/key press rather than a couple. There are ones from Kinkless & Doug’s AppleScripts.
#18 JBagley says:Oh boy, I know I’m looking for trouble for just thinking I could ask this question, but here goes…
What is the key combonation for iTunes on Windows?
*ducks*
#19 Manuel Martensen says:Hey JBagley, that would be shift+del on windows.
At least i think it is, ‘cos i had to vnc into a pc at work, so obviously i used my apple keyboard while vnc-ing, but you will find out eventually.
Funny comment of yours, hehe.
#20 Julian Schrader says:Thanks a lot!
This annoyed me so much I nearly filed it as a bug report…
#21 Alex Moyler says:Good stuff, I’m always miffed off at not being able to do that without going back to my main library.
#22 lander says:sweeticles!
#23 Jay says:Option + delete also works in iPhoto !
I love finding little features like this !
#24 Brett says:You are my hero for the day!
I download lots of mp3s from blogs, and I keep track of where they came from by using playlists. Naturally, I don’t like all the songs. I had been using the little arrowhead links that show up when a song is highlighted to quickly jump me to the song in my Library. I have always been looking for this key combo.
#25 Rory says:I knew about this a long time ago, but I didn’t remember and couldn’t be bothered to figure out by testing which of the modifier keys to hold down, so I always just held down all four (Command, Option, Control, Shift). It still worked fine. For those of you who have trouble remembering shortcuts, just try holding them all down. In general, deleting is strengthened or has no warning when modifier keys are held down.
#26 smackfu says:Does this work for Smart Playlists, where you can’t delete the track from the playlist with Delete?
#27 Manuel Martensen says:smackfu, that wouldn’t be so smart for such a smart playlist. i didn’t try though.
why don’t you try it?
#28 Freeze says:THANK YOU!!!!
I’ve wanted this shortcut for so long!
Many blessings upon your house.
Cheers.
#29 kanny says:i use Cmd+delete followed by M to move to trash
#30 smackfu says:Woo, I got a chance to try this on my home computer, and it does work for Smart Playlists. I have one for recently added stuff, and I’m always trying to delete things from it and failing. And now I can succeed!
#31 Gary King says:This is great! How did you figure this out?
#32 grrowl says:This also works on smart playlists, and the shortcut in windows is SHIFT+DELETE. There doesn’t seem to be a way to bypass the “Are you sure?” dialog on windows.
Thanks for the tip!
#33 Lordmike says:How do I do this on a macbook pro? No delete button. And option, I always forget that one.. is it the apple key or is applekey the command key? So alt could be option?
#34 Julian Schrader says:Actually there is a delete key on the MacBook (Pro): Press [fn] + [backspace] = [delete].
#35 Julian Schrader says:And yes, option and alt are the same.
#36 Lordmike says:Aha ok, which means I need to press alt fn+backspace to do this? Sounds good enough for me. =) Thanks for the tip!
#37 Julian Schrader says:Exactly
#38 Bob says:For some reason it dose not work on my mac. I have ver. 7.4.1(2) please help is there a settings I need to play with? it dose not work for me.
#39 Bob says:OK that is what I found in help:-
“If the item is stored in the iTunes Music folder (in the Music folder in your home folder)To leave the item on your hard disk, click Keep Files”
I do not keep music in the i-Tunes library because I noticed that it copies it from the location it was when you add it to the library. so you ending up with 2 files one in original location and another in Itunes library.So I disabled this feature.
#40 Jamie says:I’m a little confused by all of this. You see, ever since I’ve used iTunes, 3 years or so, I have ALWAYS been given the Keep/Move to Trash dialog. I simply don’t understand what you’re all on about! I have never had to track down files myself and bin ‘em.
Never that is, until now. I bought a G-Drive to house my now gargantuan collection and downloaded the latest iTunes 7.4 or whatever. Now when I delete tracks I have the same problem as everybody else.
I wonder what’s changed!
#41 Chad says:Thank you for your feedback above.
The problem that I am having is with my WINDOWS VISTA computer. Even though a few people so confidently identified the solution to Windows iTunes as SHIFT + DELETE…it doesn’t work that way for me.
Can anyone help me delete songs from my playlist and from my hard drive???
#42 minikperi says:This has been one of those low-grade annoyances that constantly comes up and irritates, but doesn’t quite cross the threshold of making me mad enough to set everything aside until I can find a fix for it. Now, you have set me free, my brother. Bless you.
#43 Jarad Johnson says:Thanks! I had all my duplicate songs in a playlist (via Corral) and, to my knowledge, had no way to dispose of them.
This simple fix just saved me hours. You rock.
#44 JonathanG says:So I am having the same problem as Chad with vista. Shift delete doesn’t work.
#45 oxy says:Yes, It doesn’t work on my iTunes v 7.5 too!
I’m referring to Bob’s #38 & Jamie’s #40 reply that this
Option + Command + Delete Combo
doesn’t work with the latest incarnation of iTunes upgrade.
I wonder why??? Is this done on purpose? If yes why? Cos it’s such a little ’setback’ that’s annoying & u would have thought the nice folks at Mac’s workshop with their cutting-edge automators & workflows shortcuts to cover these tiny (but important) finishing touches…
Maybe someone can enlighten? Thanx.
#46 Jon says:This tip was exactly what I was looking for. My itunes library got damaged and I had some relic podcasts which only showed up in the playlists when it got rebuilt. I could not figure out how to delete the entry for the longest time. A lifesaver.
#47 Jon says:Chad I am also using Vista and shift+delete has worked like a charm. It seems you have to hold them down for longer than normal but it does work.
#48 yellowbeard says:oh hell yes, this was a big problem for me when trying to get rid of crappy downloaded music auto added via NetNews Wire.
#49 chadrick says:im in the same boat as chad #41 i have vista and i cannot delete song off my harddrive anyone know how when delete songs from my libary
#50 Jim says:For all of those people having issues with the shortcut not physically deleting the files from your computers, I had the same issue and found a solution that worked for me.
If the files that you’re trying to remove from your library are not located in your “iTunes Music Folder”, as specified under Edit->Preferences->Advanced, then iTunes will not be able to perform any action on them. So to fix that, simply edit that setting to point to where your music files are actually held.
#51 DarinD says:#50 worked for me in Vista. Very helpful! Thanks!
#52 harry says:Thank you so much — sadly, the inability to delete from a playlist has troubled, or at least annoyed, me for years. Until now.
#53 derico says:for all the mac users who don’t let itunes manage their music, here’s a little script to delete also the actual file(s) while deleting track(s) from playlists or the library:
tell application “iTunes”
set get_loc to get location of selection
try
tell application “Finder”
set copy_files to delete get_loc
end tell
end try
tell application “iTunes”
delete selection
end tell
end tell
if you use the script in playlists, it deletes the track(s) there and the file(s), but in the library the track(s) will remain. just clean out dead tracks and they’re gone!
have a nice weekend
#54 Ravi says:I have vista and selecting the songs to be deleted and holding down shift and then pressing delete has worked very well so far. i was getting pissed of about not being able to delete songs just out of the playlists.
#55 iTunes says:Also: ‘Show | View duplicates’ shows all songs you have twice, combined with the mentioned tip you can save a fair amount of HD space and clean up your library.
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