How to delete music from your iPhone, with an easy method for deleting all of it at once

iphone dock

Deleting music from your iPhone is a great way to free up space.
Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr
  • You can easily delete music from your iPhone without resorting to iTunes on your computer
  • You can delete albums and individual tracks from in the Music app using the three-dot menu or with a deep press on an iPhone 5S or later.
  • You can use the iPhone Storage in Settings to remove individual songs, albums, entire artists, or all your music at once.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you need to free some space on your iPhone, deleting music is a good place to start — music and videos probably take up more space than almost anything else on your phone.

Or, you might just be tired of a particular song, album, or artist and want to excise it from your phone.

Either way, there are two easy ways to delete music from your iPhone.

How to delete music from your iPhone via the Music app

1. Open the Music app.

2. Tap the "Library" tab in the lower left corner of the app. You should see all your music, with links to sort your tracks by playlist, artist, album, and song.

3. Find the album or song you want to delete:

  • To delete an album, tap the album and then tap the three dots to the right.

Tap the three dots to delete an album from your Music app library.
Dave Johnson/Business Insider
  • To delete a song, start playing the track and then tap the player so it takes over the screen. Then tap the three dots in the bottom right corner.

The music player has a three-dot menu near the bottom of the screen that lets you delete the selected track.
Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. In the options window, tap "Delete from Library." Confirm that this is what you want to do by tapping "Delete Album" or "Delete Song."

If you have an iPhone 5S or later, you can more easily delete a song or album using a "deep press" instead. Press deeply on the album or track and an options window should appear. In the options window, tap "Delete from Library."

A deep press on an album or song also lets you delete it from your phone.
Dave Johnson/Business Insider

How to delete music from your iPhone via Settings

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Tap "General," and then tap "iPhone Storage."

3. It may take a moment, but you'll see a graph showing how your phone's storage is being used. Tap the "Music" app (apps are listed from largest to smallest, so Music will appear near the top if you have a lot of music stored on your phone).

4. Depending upon how much you want to prune, you have a number of options:

  • To delete the Music app and all of your music, tap "Delete App" and then confirm this choice.
  • To delete all of your music but leave the Music app on your phone, tap "Edit" and then tap "All Songs."
  • To delete an entire artist (and all of the songs for that artist), swipe the artist top the left and then tap "Delete." There's no confirmation – the artist is delete immediately – so be sure this is what you want to do.

Swipe on any artist, album, or song to delete it from the iPhone's Settings app.
Dave Johnson/Business Insider
  • To delete an entire album, tap the artist to see all the albums associated with that artist on your phone. Then swipe the album to the left and tap Delete.
  • Finally, to delete a single song, find the song by tapping the artist followed by the album. Then swipe the song to the left and tap "Delete."

Related coverage fromHow To Do Everything: Tech:

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  • How to easily delete all of your emails on an iPhone

  • How to clear the Safari search history on your iPhone in three different ways

  • How to unlock an iPhone you've forgotten the password to, even if it's disabled

Dave Johnson

Freelance Writer

Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.

More: iPhone iOS Apple Storage

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