iOS 6 Bug: Can't Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match Turned On | Chasing Down Technology - RunAroundTech.com

iOS 6 Bug or Feature? Can’t Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match Turned On

Looks like I’ve encountered my first major bug with iOS 6. If you’ve got iTunes Match enabled it seems it’s impossible to remove a song from your device. I’ve confirmed, on my iPhone 4s at least, that when I have iTunes Match turned off I can swipe across any song to delete it. With iTunes Match enable however, swiping across a song does nothing. No delete button ever appears.

This is disappointing as it disables one of the prime features of iTunes Match. The whole reason I use it is so that I can choose to download a song from my music library, at will, when I’m out and about (one that’s not on my phone.) But now it appears once I do so that song is forever stored on my device and I’m left with no way of removing it and placing it back into the Cloud. If you’re someone who struggles with space on your device this is even more of a problem.

Are you running iOS 6 on a device that also has iTunes Match enabled? Are you also experiencing this bug?

Let’s hope Apple fixes this bug very soon.

Larry

Larry has always had a passion for gear and gadgets. It all started for him with the release of the very first Palm Pilot. He has always had an interest in handheld electronics. From handheld PDAs, to cell phones, Mp3 players, watches and other products, Larry is the first person his friends, family and colleagues call when they need advice on tech.

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http://twitter.com/alpinebee Alpine Bee

Yep. Lots of people have been complaining about this same problem.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4310579?start=0&tstart=0
http://twitter.com/lgreenberg/status/248787247304949761 Larry Greenberg

New post: iOS 6 Bug: Can't Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match Turned On http://t.co/IlgFIHfg
http://twitter.com/techbloggersean/status/248789594781396992 Sean Lin

iOS 6 Bug: Can’t Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match Turned On http://t.co/GRWTUtmT #tekfalke
http://twitter.com/maher_elharake/status/248791926369841153 Maher Elharake

RT @runaroundtech: New post: iOS 6 Bug: Can't Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match Turned On http://t.co/goWcdDn8
@!ex

Wrong, it is now streaming the songs and caching them. In iOS5 the default and only option if you wanted to play a song was to download it to the device, now the default is to stream the song (with an option to download the album). I think this is much better implementation and it is now a streaming service like it is in iTunes, unless you want to download. The songs you stream are cached for replay, but if you turn itunes match off all the streamed songs will no longer appear in you music app (only downloaded songs will appear, which can be deleted in the same manner as before) and if space becomes limited it will clear the cache on the fly. In my opinion it is a much improved system.
- lgreenberg
  
  So if I decide to download an Match song, not stream, how do I get it off? And where is the option to download vs. stream because I’m not seeing that either. In my case the only option I have to download an entire Match album. Individual songs from Match don’t even appear in my “songs” list. They only appear in albums.
  - @!ex
    
    It always streams, unless you download an album. The songs do not need to be deleted because they are only cached and will not disrupt any other new data. If you decide to download an album, or for songs already in your library (downloaded from match or added through syncing) you can delete them as in iOS 5 by swiping left (with itunes match turned off). I don’t get what is so wrong about this? In fact I really like the new streaming system. If I’m going off data for a long time I’ll just download a few albums to listen to (or just keep my favorites on there), then I can always delete them. For the rest of the time you can stream any song without worrying about later deleting it or filling up your phone, plus it sems to stream much better and switching songs is a lot more seamless.
    - lgreenberg
      
      I guess this is the part I’m still missing, “then I can always delete them”
      
      How?
      - @!ex
        
        I think you might be missing what streaming is. It is streaming the data from the song realtime to your phone, and not downloading like it used to in iOS 5, and it is only storing it in a temporary cache so it is available if you play it again a few minutes later, but it is not permanently stored on the phone. What you need to do (and what I found myself having to do) is to change the way you think about how you use Match, instead of thinking of it as only a way to download your music to yor device and then listen to it, all the while worrying about how much space you were taking up, now just stream away and never worry about how much space is being taken up, because for all intents a purposes, none is. You can still download albums by pressing the icloud button next to the album art after you have clicked into an album (I agree it is a shame you can’t download individual songs) for listening offline, and you can still delete individual songs that were downloaded or full albums or artists after you switch match off. It’s mainly a switch in how you think about it, and n the end will be much less confusing for those that never used match before ios6.
      - lgreenberg
        
        So I understand, I think, that if I start to play a SINGLE SONG that’s in the cloud, not yet on my phone it doesn’t download it, it just streams it.
        
        I guess though where the disconnect still lies is you can not delete anything that you actually download from the cloud. In this case your only option of which is entire albums.
        
        So let’s say I’m going on a trip. I want to listen to music while I fly and it’s a long trip. I proceed to download several albums that are in the cloud to my iPhone so I can listen to them while on the plane, where there is NO WiFi so I can’t stream.
        
        What you’re saying is that those albums are forever stored on my phone? How do I regain that memory back? The only option would appear to be to have to turn off Match, delete the songs/albums I previously downloaded and then reenable Match.
        
        Seems crazy.
        
        P.S. I appreciate you carrying on this topic!
      - Paul
        
        I’m an iPod Touch user and just downloaded Match. Since I don’t have 3g or 4g, I can only stream when i have WiFi, but I got match so that when I DO have WiFi, I can stream/download stuff for later when I’m forced offline. I thought it would be a more convenient way to manage my 43GB iTunes library on my 8GB iPod. It’s not that I can’t delete stuff when I want to free up space, it’s just a hassle and not really the Apple way….
      - @!ex
        
        only takes a second to go into settings, flip the toggle to turn off match, then go back to the music app and delete the songs. In fact it is also a really nice way to just view the albums that you have downloaded (so you don’t have to see every album in your whole library). I usually only have my newest albums downloaded and a couple of my favs, I often turn off match just so I can see only my new albums which helps me also remember new stuff I’ve added that I forgot about, and helps slim down my library when I don’t need to see everything. I agree it’s a bit kludgy to have to go into settings to do this and that you can’t toggle in the music app, but I have been dealing with this even in ios 5 as I used the same workflow then too, in fact when I had my phone jailbroken I used a right swipe gesture across the menu bar as a direct link to the itunes setting page so I could do this toggle on the fly really quickly. If you think about it though it sorta makes sense that they made it so you have to switch off match to delete songs locally stored because with match on they wanted to simplify the GUI in music by removing the little icloud icons (which really aren’t necessary due to the now default streaming) and thus if you don’t switch off match you wouldn’t know what is stored locally and what isn’t. I’m sure they will continue to refine this, but right now it is my favorite new feature of ios6.
      - Johan
        
        This is total nonsense, if you have a huge library, like me, it takes forever to switch iTunes Match on and off, feels more like the Microsoft way than Apple’s work… This update has introduced several bugs, specially for people that squeeze the most out of their devices and don’t just have them sitting around just for show.
      - http://www.facebook.com/vicentebarreira Vicente Barreira
        
        I have the same problem. I also have a huge library and it takes to long to switch iTunes Match on or off. If i was always under a wi-fi conection and had a smaller library, it would be ok. But using 3G conection and having a huge library and being a hard user, it is to bad. I think Apple is taking to long to fix it!
      - Holger
        
        The post about “understanding what ‘streaming’ actually means” is pretty good.
        
        At first I thought it was a bug, too, but after reading different posts and what Apple actually writes in its manual about IOS6 and iTunes Match, I understood what they are trying to do with iTunes Match.
        
        It’s just a streaming service and not more (anymore). And I start to like it. I’ve got about 10GB of free storage on my iPhone (with iOS5 it was always about 500MB or so) but I can still listen to all my music.
        
        And streaming is songs much faster than clicking on a cloud song on iOS5, downloading it an the listening. Now I can click on it and it starts to play immediately.
        
        And you can still download your songs on your device. For example with a playlist. But it is not necessary anymore..
        
        And actually it isn’t so complicated to delete all your downloaded songs from your device. You don’t have to turn iTunes Match off or something. You can simply go to Settings -> General -> Usage (?) and just delete the music. I don’t know the exactly designations (German User )
    - Axel
      
      The biggest problem for me is that when you turn ITM off and on again my whole local iPhone library (~20GB) got deleted !!! Apple cannot be serious in asking people to loose their whole library every time I need to do some house keeping. So basically – there is no way of deleting, say, 10 local albums and keeping the rest intact. I can only delete individual items when I switch off ITM – but as soon as I turn it on again in iOS6 my whole local library is swiped. Thank you very much Apple – this will take me at least a day to rebuild my local stuff.
- lgreenberg
  
  And also what if I want to remove a song that’s not downloaded from Match and is already on my phone (i.e. send it to Cloud so I can stream it later?) I have to disable Match every time I want to do that?
http://twitter.com/mattiaardizio/status/248894408907452416 Mattia

#iOs6 #itunesmatch peggiora la gestione della musica!!! No download brani singoli, no cancellazione http://t.co/6YLk9GWE
http://twitter.com/andrewprocter/status/249143043465293825 Andrew Procter

iOS 6 bug or feature? Can't delete individual songs with iTunes Match turned on: http://t.co/MUIMVNZw … I'm gonna go ahead and say "bug"
http://twitter.com/diaryofaledger/status/249179479627407363 diaryofaledger

The first comment explains what is going on with music on your iPhones now. If you have Match, it streams, then caches. http://t.co/EH098CKD
http://twitter.com/robertregets/status/249522992168701952 RobertRegets

Not a bug since its by design, but certainly not a feature: Can’t Delete Individual Songs with iTunes Match – http://t.co/xMoz3PV0
Marijn

The same here. For all the music lovers this is the worst bug of iOS6. I don’t think Apple is gonna fix this soon, because it was possible in iOS5. And I really hope that Apple is not SO stupid to delete this function on purpose in iOS6. Beside that the downloaded files are not visible in your album/artist list. What did Apple think: Anybody is streaming music the whole day? Did they ever heard of a dataplan and that it is not free on cellular to stream the whole day?
Cheshire_smile

The reason I noticed this problem is because iTunes does not always download the song properly. I’ve run into many a song where I hear it just fine and then the sound stops half way through the song. The fix is often to simply delete the song from the phone, and re-download. But now I can’t just delete the individual song. Turning Match on and off is a major pain, because I have a large library (over 4000 songs) and it takes forever for Match to turn back on again. I really hope apple fixes this soon.
http://www.facebook.com/vicentebarreira Vicente Barreira

I have the same problem. I have no more space in my iphone because of that. And it is taking to long to apple fix it!
dfwPdub

There’s a trick to deleting it. Go to settings >music : then turn iTunes Match off. You can then delete to your hearts content. When done, just go back in and turn iTunes Match back on. It’s annoying, but its a temporary work around.
- Fresh
  
  Tea do that twice and all of the music is gone you have to re download everything.
http://www.facebook.com/italian.stallion125 Evan Alini

Yes I agree this is a horrible bug. The reason we got ITM was to stream songs when we’re on wifi, and don’t want to pay data fees for streaming on a cellular network. For example for me, when I mow the lawn outside, I like to have a library of downloaded songs, because my wifi won’t reach all the way across the lawn, and I don’t want to have to pay cellular data charges to stream from ITM. And now I’ve downloaded so many songs to my Iphone, I need to free up SOME space, not all of it. So you’re saying I have to go to settings to turn off ITM, risk deleting EVERYTHING, and waiting forever to turn back on ITM for a 5000+ song library, when all I want to do is delete a few large song files to free up space? Then I thought, “well if I connect to my computer I can use sync there to delete a few songs.” But NO, even there, there is no option to delete a few songs in Itunes that are downloaded to the phone without turning off ITM. Makes no sense!
http://www.facebook.com/marcfletch Marc Fletcher

There is a trick to this – I wrote a post on how to get around this – http://www.imarcfletcher.com/2012/12/how-to-delete-music-from-your-iphone-or.html
lgreenberg

For what it’s worth it appears this has been solved with the latest 6.1 update.