Cannot Delete Songs from IPOD MINI

Question

I have read the instructions on this web site, yet my songs on my ipod are "shaded" when they show up on itunes, so I cannot remove unwanted songs from my IPOD. Anyone know what to do?
Thanks

Answer 1

Grey text when you look at the content and lock symbol at the bottom of the screen simply shows that your iPod is set to "automatically update songs and playlists". . If you want to access your iPod directly, play it through your iTunes, connect it to a second computer, add or delete etc. you just need to change the update method to "Manually manage songs and Playlists" in the iPod preferences. For more detail see this tutorial: Managing Your Songs Manually
One thing to be aware of with manually updating is that the iPod also has to be manually ejected before the "Do Not Disconnect" message will go away. Safely disconnect iPod
How you delete content from your iPod depends how you have it set to update:
When you are updating automatically you delete the files from the iTunes library and next time you connect they will automatically be deleted from your iPod.
If you are updating manually, connect your iPod and click on the icon when it shows in the iTunes source list. Find the files on your iPod that you want to remove, highlight them and delete directly from there.
To select multiple items such as all the songs in an album, click on the first track in the list hold down the shift key and click on the last track to highlight the selection. Then press the delete key.
To summarise, you start by highlighting the song/video/selection in either the iTunes library or on the iPod song list as displayed in iTunes then press the delete key on your keyboard: Deleting songs or playlists from your iPod
There are also a couple of ways that do not involved deleting from iTunes. The default iPod setting is automatically update with iTunes when connected. You can keep the automatically update setting and select "automatically update selected playlists only" then all you need to do is remove the song from the chosen playlist(s) and update, it remains in your library should you want to add it in future.
Another way but in my opinion more difficult to manage is to choose the "Only update checked songs" option in the iPod Preferences. By un-checking a song in iTunes, it will not be updated to the iPod and if already on the iPod, unchecking the song in iTunes will remove it from the iPod during the next update with iTunes.