Reshuffle the iTunes song order

Aug 01, '02 08:56:56AM

Contributed by: simX

I dunno about some of you, but it seems to me that iTunes (even version 3) doesn't do that great of a job of randomizing the song play order. This is particularly apparent if you play songs directly from the Library, and not from a playlist: in my experience, if you play songs in the library, and then go back and select one that you've already listened to, you'll find that you're going through the same order of songs again!

Well I was reading through the iTunes 3 Help the other day, and you can force iTunes to reshuffle the order so it's not as predictable. If you're in a playlist and option-click on the shuffle icon in the bottom-left corner of the iTunes window, the order will be reshuffled.

The best part? It works in the library, too!

[Editor's note: This feature is a bit confusing at first, as nothing appears to happen when you option-click the shuffle button. But it does, indeed, rework the play order. Test this with a click on "Next song", note the song that's now playing, hit "Previous song", option-click the shuffle button, and hit "Next song" again. The song will be different than it was the first time you hit the "Next song" button. If you repeat the experiment without hitting the option-shuffle combination, the song will be the same. And yes, you can accomplish this same thing by clicking the shuffle button twice (to turn it off and then on). But this shortcut is one less button click.]

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