Delete a song in an iTunes playlist, and physically remove it from the hard disk

This tip has been updated for iTunes 8.0.2, but first, here’s the story.

I’m on a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz, and I launch iTunes.

I create a smart playlist, called “To delete”, in iTunes to collect all songs with a 1-star rating.

My intention is to physically obliterate these songs from my hard disk – I don’t ever want to see them again, not in this lifetime anyway.

I just want to free up some HD space, and moving these unwanted songs into the Trash is taking the first step.

Here are the steps I followed to physically remove the selected songs from a playlist:

1. Navigate to the smart playlist.
2. Highlight all the songs.
3. Press alt (option) + command + delete to get the prompt to remove these tunes from iTunes and move them to the Trash.