Use a Smart Playlist to see unchecked songs in iTunes
May 31, '05 10:25:00AM
Contributed by: budhusa
I have iTunes set up such that it only transfers checked songs to my iPod. This means i have a number of songs in my library which are unchecked. But there is no direct way to organize songs by checked/unchecked status, so I tried to come up with a way that I could have all unchecked songs in a Smart Playlist. Here is what to do:
Part 1: Create a playlist with all checked songs in your library:
- Create a new Smart Playlist in iTunes.
- Uncheck "Match the following condition" in the new playlist dialog. This will cause all songs to be in the playlist.
- Check the box by "Limit to" and fill it out with a very large number -- one that is much larger than the number of songs in your library (say, 300,000). Again, this will cause the playlist to include ALL songs.
- Check "Match only Checked Songs" and leave "Live Updating" checked. This will only match songs that are checked.
- Click OK and name the Playlist "Songs (Checked)".
This playlist now includes all the checked songs in your library.
Part 2: Create a playlist with all the unchecked songs in your library:
- Create a new Smart Playlist in iTunes.
- This time, leave "Match the following condition" checked.
- As the condition, select "Playlist is not 'Songs (Checked)'"
- Click OK and name the Playlist "Songs (Unchecked)".
This playlist now includes all the UNchecked songs in your library. A bit of a roundabout way, but works nonetheless.
[robg adds: This worked for me, though I think the upper Limit value is 99,999 -- I got a beep if I tried six digits. It always struck me as odd that there wasn't an easy way to see your unchecked songs; this is a nice workaround.]
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