A Tip for Syncing With a Library Larger Than iPod

[ashawley]

OK, many of you are probably in my boat. You've got a library larger than what will fit on your iPod.

I'm coming from the MC9 world, and there I would create a Master Smartlist, exclude a bunch of artists, albums or whatever and always manage that one list to the size of my iPod.

All my other smartlists started off w/the rule "Playlist=iPod Tunes" so I was always assured they only contained songs that were on my master playlist (nested smartlists, a feature I wish iTunes had).

Anyway, I started making a Smartlist similar to my master one in itunes and quickly ran into a problem: I couldn't add all my rules, the dialog box got too big so I couldn't click the OK button.

So, I read help and little and learned about the checkboxes next to each song. That's the ticket then. Shoot, I thought, I gotta check off each song? No, I should be able to highlight a bunch and hold the <shift> key down and uncheck all the highlighted one. Nope didn't work..but....<cntrl> does work (not windows standard, but whatever, I'll cut them some slack ).

So, here is a step by step of what I'm talking about:

• Click the Browse button in the upper right-corner so the Panes are viewable at the top.
• Select an Artist in the pane at the top that you want to exclude from the iPod.
• Hold down the <cntrl> key and click the first checkbox--all the checkboxes for that artist will become unchecked.
• Continue for each Artist that you want to exclude. You can if you wish, as an alternative, select an Album or Albums and deselect that way as well
• When done excluding all the artists, click on File>New Smart Playlist
• Uncheck the "Match Any of the Following Conditions" checkbox
• Check the "Limit To" checkbox, set it to 100 GB, sort by Artist

You're done, now click on the iPod Options button in the lower right-hand corner and select this Playlist to sync w/the iPod (and any others

You can of course use the setting in the iPod options to only match checked songs, but I like creating the Smart Playlist because it allows me to easily see the size of the tunes I have checked. I've yet to find an easy "view" in iTunes other than this to see checked tunes.

Hope that makes sense, might help some people....

Adam

[Radiant]

Thanks a bunch. Exactly what I needed.

[ashawley]

Glad it worked out fer ya!

[SpideyPod]

Perfect Adam!!

The prospect of having to check and uncheck each box was making me nauseous. This should work out perfectly!!

Thanks again!

[ashawley]

Think I'll Sticky this for now.....since you guys are seeming to find it useful..

Adam

[theChronic]

maybe I'm missing something, but your step 'Next, Make a Smartplaylist, the only rule on it should be Sync only checked song' -

do you mean the checkbox second from the bottom 'match only checked songs'? because if I uncheck the top 'rule match' checkbox I can't click 'OK', but I cant see a rule category that corresponds to what you are saying -

TIA

[ashawley]

Oh, you've got to uncheck the very top checklist. Where it says to match all the rules. Then the OK button will become available.

Sorry--forgot to add that.

[theChronic]

strange - i thought that is what you meant, but when i uncheck that top checkbox (leaving only the 'match checked songs only' selected) the 'ok' button greys out. I can only get it to re-enable by checking that top checkbox. . .

[ToddW]

Thanks Adam, I was beating my head against the wall last night trying to find my master playlist going with the iPod.

[bstark]

Sounds really complicated - and I have no idea of what it does or what you really trying to do.

[ashawley]

That's very informative bstark.

[Kee-Lo]

Thanks for the tip Adam

[theChronic]

Originally posted by theChronic
strange - i thought that is what you meant, but when i uncheck that top checkbox (leaving only the 'match checked songs only' selected) the 'ok' button greys out. I can only get it to re-enable by checking that top checkbox. . .

Noone else has this problem with the 'OK' button greying out if you don't have the top checkbox selected?

[ashawley]

hehe, theChronic, I'm super sorry. T'was late last night and I don't know what I was thinking.

You're absolutely right. You have to have something checked. I'm not at home now, so I don't know what I did, but I think I checked the "Limit" box and set it to a really high value (larger than my library) like 100GB.

Then the OK button is available.

The key, is when you look at your Library (the # of songs) should be the same as the # of songs on this playlist.

Adam

[rcwoll]

I was trying to follow you Adam but have no idea what you mean by <cntrl>-click .
Thanks.