Comments on: Deleting iTunes Tracks from Playlists

By: Rury Galbraith

Rury Galbraith — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:41:53 +0000

You are a life saver! Can’t believe I didn’t know this sooner.

By: Jason Kraft

Jason Kraft — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:09:23 +0000

Thanks for that. I managed to make a smart playlist that held only my unchecked songs (which I wanted to delete), and was able to clean those out rather than command-selecting each unchecked item from my library.

By: Harnessing the Power of iTunes Star Ratings | TheAppleBlog

Harnessing the Power of iTunes Star Ratings | TheAppleBlog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:33:37 +0000

[...] playlist which collects all the 1-star songs and delete. But be sure to follow the advice on how to permanently delete songs from playlists otherwise the songs will remain in your [...]

By: yman

yman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:19:11 +0000

The new iTunes 8 is now screen reader friendly on both Mac and PC, or use your screen reader to purchase or download content from the iTunes Store. I got it from here: rosoftdownload.com/download/Windows/iTunes

By: iTunes

iTunes — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:23:23 +0000

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.

By: Ravi

Ravi — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:31:12 +0000

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.

By: derico

derico — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:37:15 +0000

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

By: harry

harry — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:05:26 +0000

Thank you so much — sadly, the inability to delete from a playlist has troubled, or at least annoyed, me for years. Until now.

By: DarinD

DarinD — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:47:12 +0000

#50 worked for me in Vista. Very helpful! Thanks!

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:07:55 +0000

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.

By: chadrick

chadrick — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:33:19 +0000

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

By: yellowbeard

yellowbeard — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:37:36 +0000

oh hell yes, this was a big problem for me when trying to get rid of crappy downloaded music auto added via NetNews Wire.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:38:40 +0000

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.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:32:32 +0000

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.

By: oxy

oxy — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:49:31 +0000

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.

By: JonathanG

JonathanG — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:17:11 +0000

So I am having the same problem as Chad with vista. Shift delete doesn’t work.

By: Jarad Johnson

Jarad Johnson — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:11:41 +0000

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.

By: minikperi

minikperi — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:47:55 +0000

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.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:15:56 +0000

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???

By: music » Deleting iTunes Tracks from Playlists - The Apple Blog

music » Deleting iTunes Tracks from Playlists - The Apple Blog — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:57:58 +0000

[...] slugicide wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpthasznos [...]

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:34:26 +0000

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!

By: Mac Roundup

Mac Roundup — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:11:07 +0000

[...] you always want to delete songs in your Library directly from a playlist? I did, too, and now I can. Also, here is someone’s perfect iTunes equalizer setting. I [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:09:47 +0000

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.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 03:58:32 +0000

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.

By: Eliminar una canción dentro de una lista de reproducción

Eliminar una canción dentro de una lista de reproducción — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:58:39 +0000

[...] os dejo un pequeño truco que me he encontrado en The Apple Blog. Como muchos de vosotros sabréis, al eliminar una canción que se encuentra dentro de una lista de [...]

By: Julian Schrader

Julian Schrader — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:06:51 +0000

Exactly

By: Lordmike

Lordmike — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:53:47 +0000

Aha ok, which means I need to press alt fn+backspace to do this? Sounds good enough for me. =) Thanks for the tip!

By: Julian Schrader

Julian Schrader — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:57:55 +0000

And yes, option and alt are the same.

By: Julian Schrader

Julian Schrader — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:56:45 +0000

Actually there is a delete key on the MacBook (Pro): Press [fn] + [backspace] = [delete].

By: Lordmike

Lordmike — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:01:48 +0000

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?

By: Sunday roundup at teabyrd.com

Sunday roundup at teabyrd.com — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:37:38 +0000

[...] Deleting iTunes tracks - I’ve always wondered if it was possible to delete iTunes tracks permanently while in a playlist. It turns out a quick key command makes it all possible. Highlight the track(s) you want deleted, and hit Option + Command + Delete. The track(s) will be deleted from both the playlist and your Library. [from theAppleBlog] [...]

By: grrowl

grrowl — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:46:21 +0000

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!

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 02:36:02 +0000

This is great! How did you figure this out?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:32:56 +0000

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!

By: kanny

kanny — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:23:22 +0000

i use Cmd+delete followed by M to move to trash