How to Delete Playlists on Apple Music – A Complete Guide

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Grace
October 30, 2024

Creating playlists on Apple Music is a great way to manage your music collection and elevate your overall listening experience. Playlists offer a structured way to organize your music library, allowing you to categorize songs based on genres, artists, decades, or any other criteria that make sense to you. This organization enables you to seamlessly enjoy your favorite songs tailored to specific moods or times.

Crafting playlists for special occasions, such as road trips, romantic evenings, or study sessions, allows you to set the perfect atmosphere for these experiences. Additionally, sharing playlists with friends or the public gives chances for music exchange, introducing others to your favorite tracks, and discovering new ones.

Over time, however, accumulating numerous playlists in your Apple Music Library can make it challenging to locate your preferred songs. To address this, our comprehensive guide provides instructions on how to remove unnecessary playlists from your Apple Music Library. It also includes tips on deleting multiple playlists at one click and how to save the songs while removing a playlist.

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Read Also: How to Delete Songs from Apple Music Library, Playlists, and Downloads

Delete an Apple Music Playlist from Mobile Devices

If you wish to delete an Apple Music playlist on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone, or tablet, you can achieve this by accessing your Apple Music Library.

  1. Open the Apple Music app on your iOS or Android device, go to Library from the bottom tabs, and select Playlists.
  2. Touch and hold the playlist you want to delete.
  3. Select “Delete from Library” and confirm on deletion.

For Android users of the Apple Music app, if the playlist has been downloaded on your Android phone or tablet, you will need to select Remove when touching and holding a playlist, and then select “Delete from Library.

Delete an Apple Music Playlist on a Desktop

You can easily delete a playlist on Apple Music from your Mac or Windows PC with the following steps:

  1. Launch the Music app on your Mac or the iTunes app on your PC.
  2. Right-click the playlist you want to delete in the left sidebar.
  3. Select “Delete from Library” and confirm to proceed with the deletion.

How to Delete Multiple Playlists on Apple Music at Once?

If you find yourself overwhelmed with too many playlists and wish to avoid the trouble of removing them one by one through right clicks, you can take advantage of the Playlist Folder feature in Apple Music. Simply place all the playlists you want to delete into a folder and remove them with just one click.

Step 1. Launch the Music app on your Mac or the iTunes app on your PC, and choose File > New > Playlist Folder.

Step 2. Enter a name for the folder and press Return.

Step 3. Drag the playlists you want to delete into the folder.

Step 4. Right-click on the folder, select “Delete from Library” and confirm on deletion. All the playlists within the folder will be deleted with one click.

How to Delete a Playlist but Keep Songs?

Can you delete a playlist without deleting the songs in the playlist from your library? Certainly, and there are two methods to accomplish this:

  • Add the songs to your Library before you delete the playlist.
  • Add the songs to another playlist and delete the original playlist.
  • Download songs to MP3 before deleting the playlist

1. Add Apple Music Songs to Your Library

Before deleting the playlist, add the songs to your Library first. This ensures that the songs are saved independently of the playlist. Afterward, you can safely delete the playlist without affecting the songs stored in your Library.

Please note that when you add a song to an Apple Music playlist, the song isn’t automatically saved to your Library unless you have turned on Add Playlist Songs to Library:

  • On your iPhone or iPad: Go to Settings > Music and turn on Add Playlist Songs under the LIBRARY section.
  • On your Mac: From the top menu of the Apple Music app, choose Music > Settings. Click the Advanced tab, check the box next to “Add songs to Library when adding to playlists“, and click OK.
  • On your Android: At the top right of the Apple Music app, tap the More button More button , tap Settings, then turn on Add Playlist Songs under the LIBRARY section.

To manually add a song to your Library, use either of the methods below:

  1. Tap the + icon next to the song, or
  2. Click the three dots next to the song and select Add to Libray.

2. Add Songs to Another Playlist and Delete the Original Playlist

Another approach is to add the songs from the current playlist to another existing playlist. Once the songs are transferred, you can delete the original playlist without impacting the songs. This proves to be an effective and convenient way to maintain your song collection while reducing the overall number of playlists in your library. It is particularly useful when you aim to preserve all the songs from the original playlist.

To add songs to another Apple Music playlist on your Mac or Windows, just hold and drag the original playlist to the other playlist.

You can add songs to another playlist on your Andriod and iOS devices with these steps:

  1. Go to the playlist on the Apple Music app.
  2. Tap the three dots in the top right corner of the playlist page, and select Add to a Playlist.
  3. Tap the playlist you want to transfer your songs to.

3. Download Songs to MP3 Before Deleting the Playlist

To save the songs from a deleted Apple Music playlist, consider downloading them as MP3 files for offline playback. One efficient way to achieve this is by using Pazu Apple Music Converter, a professional and secure tool supporting both Mac and Windows. This converter allows you to download Apple Music playlists, albums, and songs to MP3, AAC, FLAC, and other popular formats without compromising on quality. This ensures that you can enjoy your favorite Apple Music tracks in lossless quality anywhere and anytime.

Pazu Apple Music Converter not only downloads your favorite playlists and songs but also preserves the original audio quality, ID3 tags, and metadata, ensuring you won’t lose any important information. Notably, the converter has a remarkably fast download and conversion speed—almost 10 times faster than comparable software. In addition, Pazu Apple Music Converter is integrated with the Apple Music web player, allowing you to batch convert any Apple Music playlist or album to your preferred format without iTunes or the Music app.

Key Features of Pazu Apple Music Converter

  • User-friendly interface
  • 10x Fast Music download speed
  • Advanced DRM removal
  • Lossless audio quality
  • Keep original ID3 tags & metadata
  • Download Apple Music songs, albums and playlists
  • Unlimited downloads
  • Adjustable output options

Follow the tutorial below on how to download Apple Music to MP3 and playback offline. 

Step 1. Launch Pazu Apple Music Converter

Download, install and run Pazu Apple Music Converter on your Mac or Windows.

Apple Music Converter

Step 2. Choose the output format

The default format is M4A in 256kbps. Apple Music Converter also supports MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV, and AIFF. Click the gear icon if you want to change the output format or output folder.

Apple Music Converter settings

Step 3. Choose a playlist, artist, or album you want to download

Follow the on-screen instructions to choose a playlist, artist, or album that you want to download.

add Apple Music songs

Step 4. Start to download Apple Music songs

Click the “Convert” button to start downloading Apple Music songs, albums, and playlists to MP3, so you can play them anywhere you want, even after canceling your Apple Music subscription.

convert Apple Music to MP3

5. Locate the Converted Songs

After the conversion process is complete, click on the clock icon in the upper right corner to access the converted Apple Music songs. To locate the converted Apple Music songs:

  • You can either click the folder icon to open the output folder where the songs are saved;
    or
  • Directly go to the output folder you customized in the previous step.

Now that you’ve successfully converted your Apple Music songs to MP3, you can easily transfer them to enjoy on any supported device.

Apple Music Converter

Apple Music Converter

Download Apple Music to MP3, M4A, etc.