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I deleted all of the .m3u and .pls files from my library, because I always found them useless anyway, but they still appear in Groove Music.

The playlists in Groove Music

I know I can go through each one and delete it, but each deletion requires a few seconds and four taps/mouse-clicks. This is not how computing should work.

Where does Grove keep them and how can I remove en-masse?

Louis Waweru
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3 Answers3

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Try this :

  • Ensure the app is closed and the WWAHost.exe process (Microsoft WWA Host) is not running

  • Go to folder
    C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.ZuneMusic_[random string/hash]\LocalState\Database

  • Rename (or delete) the folder, and the database will be rebuilt on the next program run.

(source)

harrymc
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  • Hi harrymc, this worked, but unfortunately I ran into the strange issue of having every single song show up under `Unknown Artist`. Others with issue: [Example A](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/musicandvideo/forum/xboxmusic/groove-lists-nearly-all-my-songs-and-albums-as/65c71a56-d427-46bf-ae71-20aadaa19daf) | [Example B](http://groove.uservoice.com/forums/209733-microsoft-groove-feature-suggestions/suggestions/4952449-unknown-artist-album-errors). I made sure to zip what I was going to delete, and restoring them reverts me back to my original situation in the question. But +1 for now... – Louis Waweru Oct 25 '15 at 07:10
  • A more comprehensive solution to regenerating the database might be to uninstall Groove, delete the ZuneMusic folder, then reinstall Groove, See [this tutorial](http://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/). There are also alternatives to Groove. – harrymc Oct 25 '15 at 13:40
  • Thanks, harrymc! I actually found that last night after breaking the app on my own and was able to reinstall it from the store and finally restored my database. I'm a Groove subscriber at the moment, and looking to get a Lumia soon, so I'd like to stick with Groove. It also recognizes FLAC now, so I have little reason not to use it really... – Louis Waweru Oct 25 '15 at 17:35
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Although Microsoft has announced it's discontinuing Groove Music (who chose that name, seriously uncool), anyway, all the suggestions here seemed kind of complicated, and rather DIRE, and my version (10.21102.1141.0. in Windows 10) of the app didn't seem to have all the options discussed, I found a simple way to delete all the playlists at once.

Open the Playlist browser by selecting the Playlist icon on the left hand panel, which has a column of different icons on it. Right click on any playlist, and in the pop-up choose "Select" (right at the bottom of the menu.)

This puts a tick on the playlist panel, and highlights it and reveals the name and number of songs selected also.

This also causes a modal panel of new controls to appear at the bottom of the screen, where the playback controls usually are.

On that panel are a row of eight named icons with actions you can perform on the playlist, starting with "Cancel", and ending with "Select All".

Choose the last icon then, ie "Select All". And then hit the second last icon, which is "Delete."

IT throws up a warning, click ok, and then wait, it seems to take a while, with no feedback, to delete many playlists at once, and they don't seem to disappear from the screen either. But attempting to delete them all again will throw up an error, which then suggests you restart the app, and on doing this, you will find all your playlists gone, but everything else intact.

And you don't have to log into the Microsoft "Cloud" to do this. I don't even have an active MS account.

pixelwash
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Try going to Settings > Reset your cloud collection and selecting Remove all of my playlists.

The changes may take a while to process, a few hours in my case. And it may not completely reset the playlists. It only deleted about 75% of them for me.

Reset your cloud collectoin

Louis Waweru
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