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How to remove music from your apple watch

Author

Sarah Rodriguez

Updated on March 20, 2026

How to remove music from your apple watch

You can add up to 2 GB of music to your Apple Watch so you can listen to music on your watch using a Bluetooth speaker or headphones even when it’s out of range of your iPhone. However, if you want to remove the music, that’s easily done.

You must use your phone to remove a playlist from your watch. Tap the “Watch” app icon on the Home screen.

How to remove music from your apple watch

Make sure the “My Watch” screen is active. If not, tap the “My Watch” icon at the bottom of the screen.

How to remove music from your apple watch

On the “My Watch” screen, tap “Music”.

How to remove music from your apple watch

The playlist currently on your watch is listed next to “Synced Playlist”. To remove this playlist from your watch, tap on the “Synced Playlist”.

How to remove music from your apple watch

The synced playlist is labeled with “Synced” and a check mark in the list of available playlists on your phone.

How to remove music from your apple watch

Before removing the playlist from your watch, be sure to connect your watch to the charger. Your watch must be charging to sync music to or remove music from it. Scroll to the bottom of the list and tap “None”.

How to remove music from your apple watch

When there is no playlist synced on your watch, a check mark displays next to “None”.

How to remove music from your apple watch

If select your watch as the source of music and select “Playlists”, a message displays on your watch that no music is available.

How to remove music from your apple watch

Again, make sure your Apple Watch is charging before removing a playlist from it or adding a playlist to it.

How to remove music from your apple watch

Whether you’re heading out for a run, hitting the gym, doing rounds, or doing housework, your Apple Watch can hold up to 2 GB of music all on its own. All you have to do is sync a playlist over from your iPhone. The transfer is wireless and best of all, it’s easy to do.

How to download a playlist for offline listening

Before you add a playlist to your Apple Watch, you’ll want to make sure it’s first locally stored on your iPhone.

  1. Launch the Music app on your iPhone.
  2. Go to the playlist you want to download.
  3. Tap the More button (looks like •••) to the right of the music.
  4. Tap on Make Available Offline

How to remove music from your apple watch

  • The playlist and its included songs should immediately begin downloading to your device; you can see their progress by tapping the download bar at the top of the screen. After the playlist is finished downloading, you’ll find it in your local playlists.
  • How to sync playlists from your iPhone to your Apple Watch

    1. Launch the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
    2. Tap on Music.
    3. Tap on Synced Playlist.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

  • Tap on the Playlist you want to sync.
  • Connect your Apple Watch to its charger to start the sync process.
  • Once the playlist syncs over, it’ll be available for you to play on your Apple Watch.

    The Apple Watch is and will continue to be one of the most interesting devices of the company, although it lacks an extra independence from the iPhone to be much more attractive. However, there are many things it offers and many others that you should know as a user. The most important: how to manage your storage .

    Apple Watch and its storage capabilities

    Each Apple Watch offers a different storage capacity depending on the generation to which they belong and, in some cases, connectivity. So let’s first review all of this data. Just in case you never stopped to see what capacity you have available.

    • Apple Watch Series 5 offers 32 GB of capacity in the GPS and GPS + Cellular version
    • Apple Watch Series 4 offers 16 GB in both versions, GPS and GPS + Cellular
    • Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS + Cellular offers 16 GB and the model with only GPS integrates 8 GB

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    If for some reason you did not know what generation of Apple Watch you have, you can go to the application of your iPhone. Within it, in the General> Information menu you will see the total and available capacity. In addition, you will also see other useful information such as the number of songs you have stored, photos and applications.

    You can also check this from the watch, go to Settings> General> Use and there you will also see the available and used capacity. By scrolling you will see what the stored content occupies such as music, podcasts or photos.

    How to free up space on the Apple Watch

    Taking up the entire storage space of an Apple Watch is not easy, because until you gain full independence from the iPhone, many things will continue to be done from the phone. Still, you may need to free up some space to, for example, add a few more songs for when you’re going to play sports. So you can manage and delete all the data that you are not interested in having on your watch.

    Remove apps from Apple watch

    To remove any complications from the Apple Watch there are two options. The first is through the watch itself and the second from the iPhone application. How it is done in each of them is what changes slightly.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    If you are going to use the iPhone application, access it and scroll until you see the list of installed applications . Select the one you want to delete and you will access a screen where you can decide whether or not to show on Apple Watch. Deactivate and you will stop seeing it. Also, the app will now appear as available to install.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    In the case of using the watch itself, place yourself on the application grid and hold the application icon for a few seconds until you see the X on it. Press again and the application will be removed. Another option, in the list view of the applications, swipe the application to the left and the option to delete it will appear using a trash can icon.

    How to delete music from Apple Watch

    The great eater of the storage of your Apple Watch is the multimedia content, both music and podcasts or audiobooks that you can store to listen on it. As with apps, these audio files can also be managed from the iPhone and the watch.

    Delete music from iPhone

    To delete music from iPhone, access the Apps Watch application and then the music section. If you click on the Edit button you will see that an icon appears next to each playlist or album. If you press it, you will delete all the synchronized music if the What you listen to the most feature is activated.

    Delete music from Apple Watch

    Deleting music directly from Apple Watch is also easy, go to Library> Albums and there you can scroll through all your music content. When you find what you want to remove, swipe left and you’ll see the option to remove it.

    About podcasts, once you listen to them they are automatically removed. Therefore, only those episodes that you have not yet listened to will occupy memory. If you’re subscribed to a good number of podcasts and have overdue chapters, it might be worth stopping to check.

    For audiobooks the same, go to the watch application on the iPhone and in the audio books section check what you have pending. If you want to delete something in particular, uncheck the automatic synchronization option and then delete each item by swiping left over it until you see the option to delete.

    How to delete photos from Apple Watch

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Finally, photos can also take up space on your Apple Watch . Although it is not much, if you do not want them to be there, removing them is very easy to do. From the iPhone go to the Apple Watch application again and in Photo Synchronization mark or download the albums you want to have on the watch. As an additional option, you can set the maximum number of photos synchronized.

    Done, with these simple steps you will precisely control the storage of your Apple Watch.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    You can sync a playlist that you create in the Music app on iPhone to your Apple Watch and listen to songs when the iPhone is out of range. You can also remove playlists from the Watch at any time.

    In this post, I’m going to teach you how to sync a playlist to Apple Watch, find the playlist on your wrist, and enjoy your synced tracks through wireless headphones or speakers.

    How to sync your playlist to Apple Watch

    You can stream any song residing in your iPhone’s library to the Apple Watch, or play it directly on the phone. But in order to listen to music when the iPhone is out of range, you must first sync some music to your Apple Watch.

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone.

    2) Scroll down to and tap Music.

    3) Under Playlists & Albums, tap Add Music.

    4) On the Select Music screen, tap Playlists. Now tap the playlist you want to sync to your Apple Watch.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Note: Your Watch must be connected to power and within range of your iPhone, as you’ll see on the Music screen along with a “Pending…” and then “Waiting…” message at the top. Once the sync begins, you’ll see the progress on the Watch app screen as the songs continue to update.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    How to find the playlist on Apple Watch

    1) Open Music on your Apple Watch.

    2) Tap Library > Playlists.

    3) Select your playlist and start listening!

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Note: Before you can listen to the synced playlist, you’ll need to connect your Apple Watch to Bluetooth headphones or speakers.

    Help, synced playlist won’t play on Apple Watch!

    Do you have a wireless headset or speaker?

    If not, you won’t be able to listen to music through the Apple Watch speaker. You can find some pretty inexpensive Bluetooth headphones online. Note we hand-picked a great selection of Bluetooth headphones.

    To pair your wireless headphones with your Apple Watch, first put them in the Bluetooth pairing mode using the instructions that came with them. Next, go to Settings > Bluetooth on your Apple Watch.

    After a few seconds, your Bluetooth headphones should appear on the list of nearby devices. Choose them and enter a passkey or PIN, if prompted. Again, you won’t be able to listen to songs on your Apple Watch without a wireless headset or Bluetooth speakers.

    How to remove a playlist from Apple Watch

    Removing a synced playlist from your Apple Watch is also easy.

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone and tap Music.

    2) Tap Edit on the top right of the Music screen.

    3) Tap the minus sign next to the playlist and then tap Delete when it appears.

    4) Tap Done.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    More about Apple Watch

    To get the most out of your Apple wearable device, check out the knowledge base of how-tos, tips and related articles in our archive:

    Have a smart tip that you want shared with fellow readers? Plagued with a problem in a need of a solution? Let us know at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to consider your submission for future tips and tutorials.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    A terrific feature of your Apple Watch is that you can add and sync music to it independently of your iPhone. So if you pop in your earbuds, you can listen to your favorite tunes or hear your playlist while you’re working out.

    Here’s how to add, remove, and manage music on your Apple Watch.

    Managing music on Apple Watch

    • Add your music to Apple Watch
    • Decide which Apple Music playlists to download
    • Add workout music to Apple Watch
    • View the music storage space
    • Remove music from Apple Watch

    Add your music to Apple Watch

    While you cannot currently add individual songs, you can add albums and playlists to your Apple Watch. This is a good way to make sure that only the music you want is available if you’re concerned about storage space.

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone and select the My Watch tab.

    2) Tap Music.

    3) At the bottom, tap Add Music.

    4) Select from your library and tap the plus sign.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    You’ll then see the item you added at the bottom of the screen under Playlists & Albums.

    Decide which Apple Music playlists to download

    If you subscribe to Apple Music, some playlists are automatically added to your Apple Watch. These appear the top of the Music screen in the Watch app (above).

    Move the toggle for any playlist you do not want to download when your Watch is charging.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Add workout music to Apple Watch

    If you use your Apple Watch for your exercise routine, you can add a playlist specifically for that activity. Then when you begin a workout, that playlist will automatically (unless you’re listening to different music at the time).

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone and select the My Watch tab.

    2) Tap Workout.

    3) Toward the bottom, tap Workout Playlist.

    4) Select your playlist and then tap the arrow to go back.

    5) You’ll see the name of your playlist in the Workout Playlist spot.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    View the music storage space

    If you want to check and see how much storage space the music you add to your Apple Watch takes up, do one of the following.

    On iPhone

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone and select the My Watch tab.

    2) Select General.

    3) Tap Usage.

    Scroll to Music and you’ll see the amount of space used.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    On Apple Watch

    1) Open Settings on your Apple Watch.

    2) Select General.

    3) Tap Usage.

    Use your Digital Crown to scroll to Music.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Remove music from Apple Watch

    If you add albums or playlists to your Apple Watch that you want to remove later, it’s easy.

    1) Open the Watch app on your iPhone and select the My Watch tab.

    2) Tap Music.

    3) At the top, tap Edit.

    4) Tap the minus sign for the item you want to remove.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    5) Tap Delete and then confirm this action by tapping Remove.

    6) Tap Done when you finish.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Deleting albums or playlists on your Apple Watch will not delete them from your iPhone.

    Wrapping it up

    Having music on your Apple Watch, whether for listening in the office or during a workout, is a great feature of your wearable.

    What are your thoughts on adding music to your Apple Watch? Let us know below or on Twitter.

    Last updated on July 28, 2020 By Serhat Kurt Leave a Comment

    This article explains how you can delete songs, albums, or playlists in the Music app from your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac.

    You may want to delete music from your device for various reasons. For example, you may want to free up space. Or you may simply not want some songs that you want to get rid of.

    Remove music from your Apple Watch

    You can remove music from your watch using your paired iPhone. Follow the steps below:

    1. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app.

    2. Tap the My Watch tab. And scroll down and tap Music.

    3. In the upper-right corner, you will see the Edit button. Note: If you do not see this button, it means that no music is added to your watch. You can sync music by tapping the “Add Music” button.

    4. Tap the delete (-) button next to the music that you want to delete. When you are down, tap Done.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Remove music from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

    There are two ways to do this, in Settings or in the Music app. If you want to delete all of your songs, you will need to use Settings. Here is how:

    Music app

    1. Open the Music app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

    2. Select an item to delete. It can be a playlist, an album or a song.

    3. Tap and hold the item until a menu appears. From the menu tap Remove.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    4. A new menu will appear saying “This song has been downloaded to this iPhone (or iPad). Do you want to delete it from your Library, or remove the download from this iPhone?” Then tap Remove Download or Delete from Library.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Settings

    You can also use your iPhone’s or iPad’s settings to remove music from your device. Here is how:

    1. Open the Setting app on your iPhone or iPad.

    2. Go to General > iPhone Storage or iPad Storage.

    3. Scroll down and tap Music. Find an item to delete, it can be a song, an artist or an album. And swipe left. This will reveal a red Delete button. Tap Delete. If you want to delete all of your songs, then swipe left on “all songs” and tap Delete.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Remove music from your Mac

    We will use the Apple Music app. Follow the steps below:

    1. Open the Music app on your Mac. (You can use Spotlight to open the app)

    2. In the Music app, click Artists, Albums, Songs under Library in the sidebar. Or you can select a Playlist to delete.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    3. When you find the item (playlist, song, album, or artist) you want to delete. Then click the (…) more icon, if you do not see the (…) more icon, hold the pointer over an item for it to appear. Or you can right-click (control-click) the item. This will open a menu. Then select “Delete from Library”. You can delete individual songs, or multiple songs by deleting playlists, or albums.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    4. A popup will appear saying “are you sure you want to delete this song from your Cloud Music Library? This will delete this song from all of your devices using Cloud Music Library.” Click Delete Song if you want to continue.

    Remove content that you downloaded to your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or Android device.

    Delete music and music videos

    • To delete music from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, use the Apple Music app or the Settings app.
    • To delete music from your Mac or Android device, use the Apple Music app.

    How to delete items in the Apple Music app

    1. Open the Apple Music app and find the item that you want to delete. If you see the download button next to the item, the item is stored in the cloud, not on your device. When items are stored in the cloud, they don’t use any storage on your device.
    2. On your Mac, hover your pointer over the item, then click the More options button that appears.
      Or on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, press and hold the item that you want to delete.
    3. Tap or click Remove.
      How to remove music from your apple watch
    4. From the menu that appears, choose Remove or Remove Download. Or choose “Delete from Library” to remove the item from all devices that you use with Apple Music.

    How to delete music in Settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

    1. Open the Settings app.
    2. Tap General, then tap iPhone Storage or iPad Storage.
    3. Scroll to Music, then tap it.
    4. Swipe left on any artist, album, or song. Or if you want to delete all music, swipe left on All Songs.
    5. Tap Delete.
      How to remove music from your apple watch

    More about deleting music that you purchased

    If you deleted an item from your device and you don’t want the item to stream to your device or appear in the cloud, hide the item.

    If you used your computer and a USB cable to manually sync the music or music videos to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, turn off syncing.

    Delete movies and TV shows

    • To delete videos that you downloaded to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, use the Apple TV app or the Settings app.
    • To delete videos that you downloaded to your Mac, use the Apple TV app.

    Delete items in the Apple TV app

    1. Open the Apple TV app.
    2. Tap or click Library.
    3. To delete an item from your Mac, hover your pointer over the item, click the More options button , then click Remove Download.
      To delete an item on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap Downloaded, swipe left on the item, tap Delete, then Delete Download.
      How to remove music from your apple watch

    Delete movies or TV shows in Settings on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

    1. Open the Settings app.
    2. Tap General, then tap iPhone Storage or iPad Storage.
    3. Scroll to TV, tap it, then tap Review Apple TV Downloads. If you don’t see Review Apple TV Downloads, you don’t have anything downloaded to your device.
    4. Find the movie, show, or episode that you want to delete, then swipe left on it and tap Delete.
      How to remove music from your apple watch

    If you can’t delete your movies or TV shows

    If you see the download button next to the item, the item is stored in the cloud and isn’t using storage on your device. If you don’t want the item to appear in the cloud, hide the item.

    If you used your computer and a USB cable to manually sync movies and TV shows to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, turn off syncing.

    Movie rentals automatically delete at the end of the rental period.

    I have an Apple Watch S2 with watchOS 4 installed. I cannot seem to figure out how to delete music from the device.

    The watch App is telling me that I have over 2GBS of music data. I have gone into the settings for MUSIC and turned off all syncing.

    I have then placed the watch on its charger (overnight). I have even rebooted the watch. It is still reading over 2GBs of music and I cannot figure out how to delete it. HELP!

    Apple Watch, watchOS 2

    Posted on Oct 17, 2017 6:31 AM

    You should be able to do it having a look at this article: Listen to music on your Apple Watch – Apple Support (scroll to the bottom!)

    Posted on Oct 17, 2017 6:37 AM

    All replies

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    You should be able to do it having a look at this article: Listen to music on your Apple Watch – Apple Support (scroll to the bottom!)

    Oct 17, 2017 6:37 AM

    Given the steps that you have already tried, the following further steps may help:

    If you have not yet done so, update your iPhone to the latest software:

    Close certain apps and restart both your iPhone and your Apple Watch:

    • Close the Watch app and Music app (if open) on your iPhone:
      • Double-click the Home button, then swipe up on each app preview to close the apps.
    • Turn both devices off together, then restart your iPhone first:
      • Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch – Apple Support
      • How to restart your Apple Watch – Apple Support

    Place your Apple Watch back on the charger, with power connected and with your iPhone nearby and connected to your Apple Watch via Bluetooth.

    If the issue persists, then it may help to unpair and re-pair your Apple Watch:

    • The Watch app on your iPhone takes a backup of your watch automatically when unpairing via the app.
    • Initially choose to Restore from Backup during set up (most data and settings will be restored, with some exceptions, such as Apple Pay cards, passcode).
    • If the issue persists, consider instead unpairing and setting it up as a new watch.
    • Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone – Apple Support
    • Set up your Apple Watch – Apple Support

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    If you’ve installed a lot of apps on your Apple Watch, the Home screen might be getting a bit crowded. Wondering how you can remove rarely used apps from your watch? There are two ways to do it.

    One way to remove apps is directly on your watch’s Home screen. Tap the digital crown to access the Home screen and drag your finger around the screen until you find the icon for the app you want to remove. Tap and hold lightly (not firmly) on the icon.

    The Home screen enters editing mode. All apps that can be removed will have a small “x” button on the upper-left part of the icon. Tap the “x” button on the app icon you want to remove. There are some standard, built-in apps on the watch that cannot be removed, such as Settings, Maps, Weather, Alarms, Timers, and Stopwatch and the Time icon that brings you back to the watch face.

    A confirmation message displays asking if you’re sure you want to delete the selected app. Tap “Delete App”. Note that the app is not deleted from your iPhone, only from your watch.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    The app is removed, but the app icons remain in editing mode. Tap the “x” button on another app you want to remove or press the digital crown to return to normal mode.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    The app icons are not automatically rearranged to fill the gap left by the deleted app. However, you can fix this by rearranging the app icons on the Home screen into whatever shape or layout you want.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    If you find it’s difficult to tap the tiny “x” buttons on the Home screen app icons to remove them, you can remove apps from your watch using the Watch app on your iPhone. To do this, tap the “Watch” app icon on your phone’s Home screen.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Make sure the My Watch screen is active. If not, tap the “My Watch” icon at the bottom of the screen.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    Scroll through the list of apps on the My Watch screen until you find the app you want to remove from your watch and tap it.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    When an app is on your watch, the “Show App on Apple Watch” slider button is green and sits on the right. Tap on the button to remove the app from your watch.

    A message temporarily displays while the app is uninstalled and the slider button moves to the left and turns black.

    How to remove music from your apple watch

    If you want to reinstall an app you removed, you must use the Watch app on your phone. You cannot install apps directly on your watch.