[samatman]

This article prompted me to clean up my playlists, which have been 'append only' for quite a few years, and wow. What a disaster.

First: swipe-from-right doesn't reveal a red delete button, like you'd expect. So I hit the search engine, discover you have to long-press to delete. Annoying, but okay, progress.

Now, there are some albums on my Playlist page. Which is weird, and I don't remember putting them there. But when I long-press those albums, it gives me "Add to a Playlist..", which is... weird, can you add a playlist to a playlist? Anyway, there's a "Remove.." as well, let's try that.

The option screen lets me Remove Downloads or Delete from Library. I try Remove Downloads, since this is an album I put in iTunes myself and I don't want to lose it.

This... removes the album from my phone. And keeps the Playlist. There seems to be no way to remove the playlist, and keep the album.

That is, of course, what I want to do. It's an album! It doesn't need to be a playlist!! When I want it, I go to Artists or Albums!!!

This is madness. Does anyone at Apple actually use their own software?

[pwinnski]

Yes, you can add a playlist to a playlist. I do it frequently.

If you are playing an album and choose to save to a playlist, it gives that playlist the same name (and art) as the album. What else would it do? Deleting the playlist does not delete the album, why would it?

I can definitely see your confusion, and I'm sure it could be better-designed. That said, I never have any issues, and playlists are my primary use case for Apple Music.

[samatman]

Remove the Downloads removes the corresponding album, so I'm not inclined to find out if Delete from Library does the same thing.

Why wouldn't they call it "Delete Playlist"? And why does Remove the Downloads remove the underlying album, instead of the correct behavior, which is to remove the playlist from my phone but keep it in the cloud and my other devices?

This is bad no matter how you gloss it.

[samatman]

If I click Remove the Downloads on a playlist that isn't based on an album, is it going to remove those individual tracks from my phone?

When would that ever be the behavior that someone wants? Actions on a playlist should be limited to that playlist, this is UX 101 stuff.

[pwinnski]

That depends on what you've chosen for the setting related to that. If you 'Add songs to library when adding playlist,' then no, the songs/albums remain. Otherwise, the playlist is your only view to that music, and so removing it removes your only view.

I believe the default is not to add songs to your library when adding a playlist, so deleting the playlist removes your view.