I want to be able to delete tracks and albums from my library with just one (or maybe two) clicks, both when using the Roon remote app on my iPhone and when on my laptop. Why the heck can’t I do this? Surely this is a basic function. Am I missing something?
It’s to protect you from yourself. Wouldn’t want to accidentally delete something important.
Partly, it is a philosophical thing with Roon. They have a goal to ‘not modify your data’, and deletion is a major modification. But as @John_Aiello said, there is a balance to be struck between giving you ability to do simple file management and keeping users from doing stupid things.
From what I’ve seen, there seems to be an approximately equal balance between people complaining about deletion being too hard, and people complaining about that there should have been more warnings before they deleted a big chunk of their collection.
At least that’s the positive way to put it. As one member would say, ‘catering to the lowest common denominator’.
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Like the majority of Roon users, my complete Roon library is streamed - from Qobuz and Tidal in my case. If I delete something by mistake, I can add it again. Is there even a way for me to delete a track or album using the iPhone remote app?
No way for you to know this.
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AFAIK no as editing functions are disabled / unavailable on the mobile version (portrait UI).
If I recall, the pendulum has swung - years ago, there were complaints from users who deleted files from their hard drives inadvertently thinking they were only deleting tracks from their Roon library. They argued that Roon should do more to make this difficult to do accidentally. Here’s a thread that includes some posts in which forum members are quite surprised that Roon actually deletes local files when you tell it to!
I’m guessing that the Roon team would rather field complaints that tracks are a pain to delete than a pain to recover after deleting them unknowingly! Cheers!
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Roon recently made it very easy to delete tracks and albums. Any easier would be inviting calls for change from a lot of customers. I say leave it alone. It is just fine the way it is.
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I would rather click lots than lose, Roon deletes from the HDD , I have BU but even so
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I like the “Roon doesn’t modify your files” philosophy. Manually deleting (music) from a watched folder makes Roon remove them, this is good. Unfortunately, streaming messes things up a bit, so there needs to be two ‘philosophy’s’. Leave my files alone, but allow deleting of streamed stuff.
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Now that is where using Microsoft Windows has got us too.
Software that has to cater for fools.
I’m with the original poster, let’s make delete more simplified.
From your library, the original files, or streaming bookmarks? We have to be careful here.
Careful, we are not catering for run of the mill idiots here
Roon has no access restrictions, no SMB restrictions, anyone with access to my network/core/files is able to do as they will, intentionally or otherwise. “We” may not be “run of the mill idiots”, but I certainly can’t speak for the rest of my family/friends/the internet.
If we want it to be easier to delete stuff, then IMO there should be at least some user/access restrictions built in to Roon. “Oops, where did it go?” is not a conversation I want to be having with anyone.
A simple solution would be to have a user setting - default off would be one click delete (or three dot drop down delete) that removes the title from the library, but not from storage. The ‘on’ setting would delete from storage as well (with a warning first).
There is.
Use Hide to delete from Roon but not from disk.
It even has an Undo feature, Unhide.
And you can view the hidden albums.
If you want to delete from disk — why? Storage is free.
I simply use my NAS app for all file editing.
As I’m sure many Roon users have extensive libraries, the last thing they would want is for guests to have the ability to delete files while accessing the Roon when selecting music to play.
That’s my opinion anyways. 
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It would be interesting to see the split of those who stream via Tidal etc. …and those of us who prefer to be local.
I personally am not looking for more subscriptions and as a result prefer to be local.
From previous thread feedback from Roon was the majority stream only now.
Fair enough. On that note, I do wish the Hide function was a top level item on the three dot menu. It would be nice to quickly hide something without having to go to the ‘edit… menu’, then scroll to the bottom of the edit menu, and then click hide and then reconfirm hide. It’s all too much for such a simple non-destructive function.
Hide and Delete should have their own top level the same way as ‘share…’ etc. At the very least, don’t have it at the very bottom of the edit menu, move it to the top so that one doesn’t have to scroll down the screen to access it.