How do I delete the music off my iPhone 4S?

January 16, 2012 1:15 AM

Can someone please help me figure out a way of getting the photos and videos off my iPhone 4S and onto a laptop, or of deleting the music I have on it?

So here's the situation.

I have an iPhone 4S, that I've been using to take photos and videos. I'm in a remote part of India, in a wildlife sanctuary, and while the phone has been great to take photos on I have run out of space to store more photos on it.

I have a lot of songs on it that I'm perfectly willing to delete but I can't seem to delete them on the phone itself. The only copy of iTunes I have is on a Mac that seems to be out of date. I have access to the Internet but only on a Windows based laptop and the connection speed is rather slow. I also have access to an iPad that has an internet connection (but again slow).

I tried downloading a Windows copy of iTunes but it seems that it will take an entire day to download. This is the best option I can see so far, but it is likely to be unreliable.

Does anyone have any ideas about what I could do? I could probably delete some photos and videos manually and thus free up some space, but I'm going to be in this wildlife sanctuary for a couple more days and would like to take more photos. Am kicking myself for not having unloaded photos and videos from my phone before coming here, or checking whether the Apple laptop we brought along has an up to date version of iTunes.

Any ideas, anyone?

posted by peacheater to Technology (8 answers total)

Here's how to delete songs.
posted by xil at 1:27 AM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

If your apple laptop has iPhoto on it, download the photos and videos there and tell iPhoto to delete the originals when done. You'll have to open iPhoto -- it won't open automatically like iTunes does when you connect the phone.
posted by devinemissk at 1:31 AM on January 16, 2012

Like xil's link says, you can swipe songs to delete them. The link says that it's in iOS 5 feature, so hopefully you've upgraded recently.

It can also be laborious to delete photos using iPhoto, especially if you don't do it when it offers to. You can open up Image Capture on your Mac, and use that to batch delete photos and videos that you don't need.

I'm guessing the Mac laptop with iTunes isn't yours? That will probably mean you won't be able to delete specific songs on the iPhone without losing everything. Image Capture should still probably work though.
posted by mariokrat at 1:49 AM on January 16, 2012

I came to say what mariokrat has already mentioned, but I'll add this: since you have a 4S, you will definitely have iOS 5. You can swipe from any point, so you can either delete individual songs, or use album view to delete whole albums at once.
posted by jaffacakerhubarb at 3:27 AM on January 16, 2012

This is not a Mac answer -- sorry! -- but as a Windows user, I can see my iPhone's photos folder as a separate drive when I connect. I don't have to go through iTunes at all. I can copy photos to my computer and delete them directly from the phone, too.

If you don't have iPhoto on the Mac (which seems like a better choice for saving your photos efficiently), have you checked to see if your iPhone's photos folder will display as a drive on the Mac?

If all else fails, or if you want to have a separate backup apart from the Mac, you can copy the photos to your Windows laptop, confirm that they're safe, and then delete from your phone to give you maximum space.
posted by maudlin at 3:36 AM on January 16, 2012

I routinely access my iPhone's photos from my PC by plugging it in with a data cable, looking for it like any other storage device under Computer, and copying the photos over just like you would do from a memory stick; then delete from the phone. Sometimes you have to go a few folders in to find the photos.
posted by tamitang at 3:53 AM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Preview will allow you to transfer & delete photos and videos. Look for the Import From iPhone option in the menus.
posted by Aquaman at 6:27 AM on January 16, 2012

Don't use iTunes for you downloads. Use Image Capture (or even iPhoto, which I loathe...). Put the photos all into a folder on the laptop. I am not sure how to delete the images from your phone besides one at a time manually, but you should be able to clear up enough room in about 10 minutes of individual deleting.
posted by Vaike at 10:44 AM on January 16, 2012