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Unless you only listen to Beethoven sonatas all day on your iPod, (and who could ever tire of Beethoven sonatas?) probably there are a few tracks on your iPod that no longer give you the unadulterated joy that once they did. You may also find sooner or later that your iPod is starting to run out of free space (especially if you are the proud owner of a Nano) and some groovy new songs will come along and take your fancy. At some stage, then, this will mean replacing some of your existing collection and erasing some songs from your iPod to make room for new ones.

In order to erase songs from your iPod, you must first connect to iTunes. I have written a separate article explaining how to set up iTunes on your computer if you need to know. I have aslo written a separate article explaining how to remove all your music from your iPod, so this piece is going to explain how to delete individual tracks.

Once you have iTunes set up on your Mac or PC you need to connect your iPod to iTunes by plugging in your iPod using the USB cable. Your computer should automatically recognise your iPod and open up iTunes for you. If it doesn't then you simply double click on the icon to open it.

You will find "My iPod" on the left hand side of the iTunes screen near "My Library." Double click on it to reveal a list of the tracks currently on your iPod. Click on the name of a song you no longer wish to listen to, then right click to bring up the menu, one option of which is "delete". Confirm this deletion when prompted and hey presto! The song is deleted from your iPod!

The song remains in your iTunes library however, assuming you uploaded it from there in the first place, should you ever have a change of heart! If you didn't load from there, it might be a good idea to back up the song either in iTunes or somewhere else before you delete it, just in case you want it back again someday.

You can continue to delete like this on a song by song basis, or if you want to delete several tracks at once, hold down the control key first and it will let you select several songs at the same time. The selected songs will appear in blue. Release the control key, then you can right click and press delete in the same way as for an individual track. The whole group selected will then be deleted in one go.

Once you have deleted everything you no longer like, wait until the iPod has finished the synchronisation process before pressing eject and unplugging the USB cable. Failure to do so may cause your iPod some problems.

Now your iPod is blissfully free of that cute song about the frog that took your fancy three years ago but is driving you mad now, and you have lots of lovely space for new and exciting music. Now where did I put that "Barry Manilow sings Disney" CD?

Learn more about this author, Anne Davey.
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