Q: Using iTunes Match, I have managed to fill my iPad mini to capacity with music. I would like to remove some songs to free up space. The problem is that the iPad lists ALL music, whether on the iPad or not.
Is there a way, without weeding through the entire library album by album, to determine what is actually downloaded to the iPad ?
– Chris
A: Absolutely. In the Music section of your iOS Settings app, there’s an option to Show All Music.
Toggling this OFF will limit the content shown in your Music app to only those items that have been downloaded to your device, essentially filtering out both iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud purchased tracks.
You can then go into your Music app and use the standard swipe-to-delete gesture to remove any tracks you don’t want.
Deleted tracks will of course remain in your iTunes Match library, and will reappear in your listing once you toggle the Show All Music setting back on.
If you’re willing to work without a data connection, however, you can toggle this even faster simply by switching your device into “Airplane Mode”—iOS naturally filters out any cloud-based tracks when you’ve deliberately turned OFF your data connection, and since you can toggle this pretty easily from Control Centre, it’s a useful shortcut if you want to quickly switch back and forth between displaying the cloud library or only local content.