One of the few advantages iTunes ( and Winamp and Windows Media Player ) has over Spotify , Rdio and other cyclosis services is support for smart playlist . Thanks to the wealth of metadata put in by Apple ’s digital content behemoth , you could beguile your tracks around in all kinds of ways .
To set up a smart playlist , overt iTunes and go to File > New > Smart Playlist . Here are five examples of unproblematic set - ups that can some variety to your listening experience . ensure to tick the Live updating corner in each case so the play list changes with your listening history .
Listen to favorite songs you haven’t heard in a while
This playlist requires some cooking on your part — namely that your preferred songs are stamped with a four or five - star military rating . Set up a smart playlist where the Rating is heavy than three stars but the Last Played date is more than six month ago ( you may have to vary this depending on the size of it of your library ) . You ’ll then be served up all those stand - out tracks that have n’t appeared on shuffling for a while .
Listen to mostly new music (and some old classics)
This one require two playlists : a long one ( say twenty track ) filled with songs from late years , and a little one ( say five tracks ) occupy with songs from before a certain year . For both play list , set the Last Played value to Sung that have n’t been heard in the past week to keep it turning over with new music . make a raw smart play list where Playlist equals the fresh playlist or the sure-enough playlist , dress it to shamble , and your mix is ready . You could do the same with artists , genres and so on .
Listen to tunes that have been neglected for too long
This is one that many of you might already have set up . If you create a smart playlist with a single precondition that the Media Kind is Music , you could restrict it to 50 or so tracks , sorted by those that are least often played ( rather than by random , which is the default ) . synchronize this play list with your iPhone , iPod or iPad and you may give some much - need tending to those caterpillar tread languishing at the corners of your library . If you want the list to re - populate as you listen to it , filter out song mind to in the retiring week .
Listen to the songs you love the most
Besides star ratings , how can you work out which songs you love the most ? One way is sorting them by the number of times they ’ve been skipped . Set up a smart playlist to queue up Song dynasty that have rarely been skipped or have n’t been skipped recently to find the strain you ca n’t get enough of . As long as you switch on the live updating option , you could clack the next button in iTunes to at once banish a course from this panjandrum leaning and move on to something more interesting . You ’ll have to adapt the values consequently , depending on how omission - happy you are in general .
Listen to album tracks rather than hit singles
Sure , you know about the sensation valuation in iTunes , but did you get laid you may apply an album rating too ? This give you the ability to distinguish bully tracks from bad record album , bad cart track from unspoiled albums , and so on . There are a number of way you’re able to use these filter together : to hear to all the songs that are n’t four or five - star rated but which come along on well - like albums , for model . you may then rediscover some of the album tracks and B complex - sides from your favorite artists .
There are a huge number of possible action when it comes to smart playlist , and we ’ve only really scratched the surface here — if you ’ve got a combination you like using , we ’d love to hear about it below .
ITunes

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