How to get iTunes to remember playlists?

[hotty4uuk]

I had my playlist set to only update checked tunes so they would fit on my 16GB iTouch. I had to reinstall windows on another HD and iTunes and now all songs are checked.

I have not updated my iTouch since and I do still have the original harddrive. Is there a file I can import into iTunes so it remembers what was and wasn't checked on my library on the other HD?

Cheers

[S2_Mac]

You could locate the "iTunes Library.itl" file on the old drive; use it to replace the same file on the new machine (iTunes must be quit when you do this) -- then you'll have exactly the same library you had on the old computer. (Of course, you should first save a copy of your current -- new machine's -- "iTunes Library.itl" file, just in case Things Go Horribly Wrong.)

In the long run, though, it might pay off better to use more smart playlists instead of having to deal with checking/unchecking. The "limit" section of a smart playlist dialog lets you cap the disk space, so you can tailor the amount of content to best fit your iPod's capacity. There's all kinds of tricks for using SPLs to great effect; check out SmartPlaylists.com (http://smartplaylists.com/).

[hotty4uuk]

You could locate the "iTunes Library.itl" file on the old drive; use it to replace the same file on the new machine (iTunes must be quit when you do this) -- then you'll have exactly the same library you had on the old computer. (Of course, you should first save a copy of your current -- new machine's -- "iTunes Library.itl" file, just in case Things Go Horribly Wrong.)

In the long run, though, it might pay off better to use more smart playlists instead of having to deal with checking/unchecking. The "limit" section of a smart playlist dialog lets you cap the disk space, so you can tailor the amount of content to best fit your iPod's capacity. There's all kinds of tricks for using SPLs to great effect; check out SmartPlaylists.com (http://smartplaylists.com/).

Thanks for such an informative post! I will check out that website right away.

I did try importing the itl file into iTunes but I will replace the current one and hope for the best.

Once again many thanks.