Update 'Last Played Date' for skipped iTunes tracks

May 20, '04 09:37:00AM

Contributed by: A. Square

I use smart playlists to feed into Party Shuffle in iTunes. One of the criteria I use is "last played," to prevent songs from coming up too often. Unfortunately, "last played" only gets updated automatically when the song finishes, so if I skip a track it doesn't get removed from the pool. This always bugged me, so I made the following tiny Applescript:

tell application "iTunes"
  set played date of current track to current date
  next track
end tell
Assign it a hotkey using your favorite method of assigning hotkeys to AppleScripts (I use Quicksilver), and you're all set! Best of all, this method leaves Play Count untouched.

[robg adds: This is a very handy AppleScript; I have been opening the iTunes window for songs I wish to skip, then dragging the play bar nearly to the end, which lets the song finish and then removes it from recently played. This is much simpler. I attached it to a hotkey using Butler.]

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