The Hidden Delete Song Button in the iOS 10 Music App

So this is weird. Stephen Redford pointed out on Twitter that there’s a hidden button in the iOS 10 Music app that allows you to delete a song. It’s located at the bottom left of the Now Playing window. It’s about where the red circle is on this screenshot:

Hidden delete button

When you tap that button, here’s what you see:

Delete song

Though that’s an odd place to put such a button; I don’t ever recall a Delete button being on the front screen of the Music app. You can tap the … button to bring up a dialog and tap Delete from Library to do the same thing, and that’s where such a button should be; it shouldn’t be something that you can tap accidentally.

Note that this is the case in the iOS 10 GM, which should be the final version of the operating system, but given the number of bugs I’ve seen in this version, I’m pretty sure there will be an update on Tuesday, when it is released to the general public.

Want to know more about the iOS 10 Music app? Check out these articles:

And learn What’s New in iTunes 12.5.

24 thoughts on “The Hidden Delete Song Button in the iOS 10 Music App”

  1. I really hope they bring the star ratings method back! I downloaded the public beta of iOS for my iPad a couple weeks ago, but didn’t notice it was missing since I rarely play music on it. It wasn’t until I downloaded the Golden Master to my iPhone 6 Plus that I spotted it. I still sent feedback to Apple mentioning this, but it might be too late now for them to add it back (not that they would do it just for me anyway). I read one of your recent articles about it not being in the beta version of Sierra either, Kirk. I hope someone at Apple brings it back. I have years and years worth of songs I have star rated. I rely on that MUCH more than the ❤️ rating method.

  2. I really hope they bring the star ratings method back! I downloaded the public beta of iOS for my iPad a couple weeks ago, but didn’t notice it was missing since I rarely play music on it. It wasn’t until I downloaded the Golden Master to my iPhone 6 Plus that I spotted it. I still sent feedback to Apple mentioning this, but it might be too late now for them to add it back (not that they would do it just for me anyway). I read one of your recent articles about it not being in the beta version of Sierra either, Kirk. I hope someone at Apple brings it back. I have years and years worth of songs I have star rated. I rely on that MUCH more than the ❤️ rating method.

  7. Pretty much every GM leads to a .01 release shortly after the official release. In fact, the GM of iOS 10 is 10.0.01 already. There are lots of visible bugs in it, as well as performance issues.

    I’m pretty sure there was a major update to iOS 7 or 8 on release day, or a few days after, to fix a serious issue.

  8. Pretty much every GM leads to a .01 release shortly after the official release. In fact, the GM of iOS 10 is 10.0.01 already. There are lots of visible bugs in it, as well as performance issues.

    I’m pretty sure there was a major update to iOS 7 or 8 on release day, or a few days after, to fix a serious issue.

  9. This music app is downright weird. I’m playing with it tonight. After a recent issue with some bad drives, I have music on my phone not recognized by itunes, and I’m trying not to lose it. If you downloaded songs from itunes, you can remove them or share them as songs or as a complete album. For songs imported to the library, you can only remove them song by song, and you can’t share them. They really put some noticeable limits in place.

  10. This music app is downright weird. I’m playing with it tonight. After a recent issue with some bad drives, I have music on my phone not recognized by itunes, and I’m trying not to lose it. If you downloaded songs from itunes, you can remove them or share them as songs or as a complete album. For songs imported to the library, you can only remove them song by song, and you can’t share them. They really put some noticeable limits in place.

  11. For undownloaded tracks, there’s a download button there. The same invisible delete button actually exists to the right of song titles in lists too, where it also corresponds to where the ‘download’ button would be if it weren’t already downloaded. I guess they decided to take out what was probably the old ‘local track’ icon (a phone with a check mark), and neglected to remove the tap targets.

  12. For undownloaded tracks, there’s a download button there. The same invisible delete button actually exists to the right of song titles in lists too, where it also corresponds to where the ‘download’ button would be if it weren’t already downloaded. I guess they decided to take out what was probably the old ‘local track’ icon (a phone with a check mark), and neglected to remove the tap targets.

  15. Is there a way to delete a song from a PLAYLIST, but not from the library? I know the feature existed pre-iOS 10, but I can’t find it now.

    Also, I wanted to add a track to an existing playlist, but when I selected “add to playlist,” only a few came up. What happened to the others? Do I now have the capability to execute these actions in ONLY in iTunes, or is there some non-intuitive menu that I haven’t yet discovered?

    • Something odd is indeed up with playlist editing in iOS 10 … I can add songs to playlist by selecting the playlist, tapping ‘edit’ and searching for the song; but when trying to add them through the ‘currently playing’ view/’…’ menu; I only get the ‘new playlist’ option, and not my already existing ones …
      Perhaps the problem has to do that all of my playlists are in playlist folders in iTunes, to keep them organised (I have *a lot* of smart and manual lists, for labels, artists using different names etc etc)?

  16. Is there a way to delete a song from a PLAYLIST, but not from the library? I know the feature existed pre-iOS 10, but I can’t find it now.

    Also, I wanted to add a track to an existing playlist, but when I selected “add to playlist,” only a few came up. What happened to the others? Do I now have the capability to execute these actions in ONLY in iTunes, or is there some non-intuitive menu that I haven’t yet discovered?

    • Something odd is indeed up with playlist editing in iOS 10 … I can add songs to playlist by selecting the playlist, tapping ‘edit’ and searching for the song; but when trying to add them through the ‘currently playing’ view/’…’ menu; I only get the ‘new playlist’ option, and not my already existing ones …
      Perhaps the problem has to do that all of my playlists are in playlist folders in iTunes, to keep them organised (I have *a lot* of smart and manual lists, for labels, artists using different names etc etc)?

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