Having a large Apple Music library downloaded on your iPhone can quickly eat up your device’s limited storage capacity. The Apple Music app allows you to save music for offline listening, which gets downloaded directly to your iPhone. Over time, these downloaded songs, albums and playlists can accumulate and take up multiple gigabytes of space.
This lost storage space can slow down your iPhone’s performance and prevent you from adding new apps, photos and videos. You may see pop-up warnings that your storage space is almost full. To reclaim that space for more important personal content, you may need to mass delete the entire Apple Music library from your iPhone.
Back Up iPhone Data
It’s critically important to back up your iPhone data before making any major changes like mass deleting your Apple Music library. A backup creates a copy of your iPhone’s data and settings and saves it either locally on your computer or in iCloud. This gives you a way to restore your device if anything goes wrong during the deletion process.
There are a few different backup methods to choose from:
- iCloud backup – Apple provides 5GB of free iCloud storage that can continuously and automatically back up your iPhone when connected to power, WiFi, and locked. iCloud backups include device settings, app data, photos, videos, device settings, app data, and more. Simply ensure iCloud backup is enabled in Settings.
- iTunes backup – Connect your iPhone to your computer via USB and open iTunes to create a backup locally. This mirrors your iPhone data to your computer.
- Third party tools like iMazing – These tools provide more customizable backup and restore options and allow transferring data between devices.
No matter which backup method you choose, be sure your iPhone data is fully up to date before proceeding with deleting your Apple Music library. A current backup gives you the best chance of restoring your iPhone seamlessly if anything goes wrong.
Turn Off iCloud Music Library
Before deleting any music from your iPhone, you’ll want to turn off iCloud Music Library. This syncing feature automatically uploads your Apple Music library and playlists to iCloud so they can be accessed on all your devices. Turning it off disconnects your iPhone from the cloud library.
To disable iCloud Music Library on an iPhone or iPad:
- Open the Settings app
- Scroll down and tap on Music
- Under “Library”, toggle the switch off next to “Sync Library”
- Confirm turning off iCloud Music Library by tapping “Turn Off” on the pop-up
Once disabled, your iPhone will no longer sync music with iCloud. This prevents any deleted songs from being re-downloaded later. According to The Verge, turning off iCloud Music Library is an important step before deleting songs from your iPhone.
Delete Downloaded Apple Music
To delete all downloaded Apple Music files from your iPhone, follow these steps:
1. Open the Apple Music app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on the Library tab at the bottom.
3. Tap on Downloads at the top of the screen.
4. Tap Select in the top right corner.
5. Tap on the first song, then tap Select All at the top.
6. Tap Delete to confirm deleting all downloaded songs.
This will delete all downloaded Apple Music files from your iPhone, while keeping the songs saved in your Apple Music library for streaming later. If you want to remove the Apple Music files from your library as well, you will need to manually unlike each song.
Source: Delete music in the Apple Music app – Apple Support
Sign Out of iTunes & App Store
Signing out of your iTunes and App Store accounts on your iPhone is an important step when deleting Apple Music. This resets all of your Apple Music preferences and clears any downloaded music or offline playlists. According to Apple Support, here’s how to sign out on an iPhone or iPad:
Go to Settings, then tap your name. Scroll down to the bottom and tap Sign Out. You’ll be prompted to enter your Apple ID password to confirm you want to sign out (1).
Once signed out, your Apple Music preferences like downloads, playlists, and recommendations will be cleared. This ensures a clean slate when removing Apple Music before re-enabling it.
Delete Apple Music App
Deleting the Apple Music app from your iPhone will remove all downloaded and saved Apple Music content locally stored on your device (source). This includes any songs, albums, playlists, music videos, and more that you’ve added from Apple Music to your iPhone’s library.
When you delete the app, you’ll no longer have access to stream or play any Apple Music content. However, your Apple Music account and data will still be stored in iCloud. So your playlists, favorites, recommendations and other data will remain saved. You just won’t have the ability to stream or download any content without the app.
If you reinstall Apple Music later, you can sign in and re-enable iCloud Music Library to begin redownloading your library. But locally stored music in the app will be erased when you delete it. So removing the app provides a way to clear all Apple Music content from your iPhone’s storage if needed.
Re-download Apple Music
After deleting the Apple Music app, you will need to re-download it from the App Store in order to regain access. Here are the steps:
- Open the App Store on your iPhone.
- Tap the search icon at the bottom right.
- Type “Apple Music” in the search bar.
- Tap the ‘Get’ button to re-download the Apple Music app.
The Apple Music app will download and install. You can then open it and sign in with your Apple ID to restore access to your Apple Music library and recommendations. Re-downloading the app provides a fresh start as it will not remember any previous data or settings.
For more details, see Apple’s guide on Redownloading music.
Enable iCloud Music Library
After deleting all of the downloaded Apple Music content, the next step is to turn iCloud Music Library back on so your music library can begin syncing across your devices again. To enable iCloud Music Library:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap on your Apple ID banner at the top of the screen.
- Tap on iCloud.
- Under Apps Using iCloud, turn on Music.
This will begin the process of re-syncing your music library via iCloud. Any music you previously purchased or added from your computer will begin downloading again (1). Keep in mind this process can take some time depending on the size of your library.
You can check the progress under Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Manage Storage. Tap on Music to see the status of tracks being uploaded or downloaded.
Once iCloud Music Library finishes syncing, you’ll have access to your full music collection again on all devices logged into the same Apple ID.
Redownload Music
After deleting your Apple Music library, you’ll need to redownload any purchased or previously downloaded songs. Songs that were purchased from the iTunes Store can be downloaded again at no additional cost. Go to your iTunes Purchase History on your iPhone to redownload songs you’ve bought. All purchased songs should be available to download [1].
Any music downloaded from your Apple Music subscription library will also need to be re-added. Songs you added by “liking” them can easily be found in your Library tab by searching for the heart icon. Use the search bar to find artists or albums to re-add. You can also browse recommendations and playlists you previously saved to add music back to your library [2].
Conclusion
In summary, this process allows you to completely remove and start fresh with the Apple Music library on your iPhone. By backing up your iPhone data, turning off iCloud Music Library, deleting any downloaded Apple Music files, signing out of iTunes & App Store, deleting the Apple Music app itself, and then re-enabling iCloud Music Library – you can wipe the slate clean.
The benefits of this approach are that it removes any unwanted, duplicated, or problematic music files that may have accumulated over time. It gives you a fresh start with Apple Music’s library on your device. Just be sure to backup any important iPhone data first, as this process will delete all locally-stored music. With a few simple steps, you can refresh your iPhone’s Apple Music library and ensure it contains only the songs, albums, and playlists you want.