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:

  1. Create a new Smart Playlist in iTunes.
  2. Uncheck "Match the following condition" in the new playlist dialog. This will cause all songs to be in the playlist.
  3. 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.
  4. Check "Match only Checked Songs" and leave "Live Updating" checked. This will only match songs that are checked.
  5. 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:
  1. Create a new Smart Playlist in iTunes.
  2. This time, leave "Match the following condition" checked.
  3. As the condition, select "Playlist is not 'Songs (Checked)'"
  4. 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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