In short: Tap on the Up Next button (the icon with three bulleted lists). Swipe down to see your recently played songs under History. Tap on Clear to delete your recently played songs.
While there isn’t a way to reset your Apple Music account, you can easily clear your recently played songs, also known as listening history on Apple Music, with these steps.
How to clear Apple Music recently played on iOS
Your recently played songs, also known as history on Apple Music, are listed on the Up Next window. To open this window, tap on the Up Next button (the icon with three bulleted lists).
Here are the steps to delete your Apple Music recently played songs on your iPhone or iPad. A song needs to be playing before you can use the following steps.
- Open the Apple Music app.
- Tap the player to open Now Playing.
- Tap on the Up Next button (the icon with three bulleted lists).
- Swipe down to see your recently played songs under History.
- Tap on Clear to delete your recently played songs.
After tapping on the Clear button, Apple Music will make sure that you want to clear your playback history on your iPhone. Tap on Clear once more and the app will delete your history.
Alternatively, you can choose to remove one or several songs from your recently played list. To remove a song from your listening history, swipe it to the left, then tap on Remove.
Once you’ve cleared the Apple Music recently played, tap on the Up Next button again to close the window. Congratulations, you’ve cleared the Apple Music recently played on iPhone or iPad.
How to clear Apple Music recently played on the web
Your recently played songs, also known as history on Apple Music, are listed on the Up Next window. You’ll need to use a Mac with macOS Catalina or later.
Here are the steps to delete your Apple Music recently played songs on the web:
- Open the Apple Music app.
- Click the Up Next button on the top-right corner of the window.
- Click History on the top-right corner of the Up Next window.
- Click Clear at the bottom of the list to clear your listening history.
You can also choose to remove one or several songs. To remove a song from your listening history, right-click on a song in your History and choose the option Remove from History.
Apple Music listening history explained
On the Apple Music app settings, there is an option to enable or disable Use Listening History. You’ll find this option on the Settings app under Apple Music.
It’s an option that lets your Apple Music followers know what you’ve played. It also serves for better music recommendations, as well as songs and albums you might like in the For You tab.
However, I’ve gotten plenty of questions recently about the “Use Listening History” feature because, in my opinion, Apple did a poor job describing the feature.
The description reads as if disabling this setting simply disables the sharing of your history, and consideration of this data when developing recommendations.
But it does not only apply only to how that data is used.
The truth is, disabling the “Use Listening History” feature will turn off the play count recording on the Apple Music app on your device entirely.
That means that if you disable this setting, you’re no longer gathering the data (on that device) that Apple uses to populate and update playback-based features like Replay or Heavy Rotation.
So to make your life easier, here are three instances when you should choose to disable or enable the “Use Listening History” feature on the Apple Music app.
Disable “Use Listening History” if you want to remain private
If you don’t want your listening history to be shared and you don’t want your followers on Apple Music to see what you’ve been listening to, disable the “Use Listening History” setting.
Disable “Use Listening History” when sharing with other people
A pretty popular tip has been going around that disabling this setting will result in more accurate recommendations, particularly when the account is shared between multiple people.
That’s true because only things like liked/disliked songs will be factored into recommendations, and playback data “noise” from other users will be ignored.
If your device is going to use Apple Music outside your usual tastes (like at a party), disabling this setting ahead of time will preserve Apple’s understanding of your personal listening habits.
Enable “Use Listening History” for better recommendations
Anytime you want your Apple Music playback history to be logged for any reason (to calculate Apple Music Replay or allow Smart Playlists updating, for example), you should turn it on.
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