Here is a guide on how to use the Smart Playlists in iTunes on your Mac. The goal of Smart Playlists is to take tracks that meet your search criteria and put together playlists for them.
There are several settings you can set for smart playlists and there's plenty of room for customizations. Once you understand how these playlists work, you can quickly and easily add your own searches and start listening!
How to Use Smart Playlists in iTunes
Here are the steps to create a smart playlist.
What are Smart Playlists?
iTunes comes preloaded with several Smart Playlists in the sidebar, including those like Classical Music, Recently Added, and Recently Played . These are exact examples of the types of playlists you can create for your own criteria . If you click on any of these playlists and then choose Edit Playlist, you can see how they are created.
Upon opening one of the pre - made playlists , you should be able to get a good idea of how those playlists work. You will see that these playlists have a Match function which will then meet the criteria you select. For my example, I'm looking at the Recently Added playlist which states Meet Songs Added within the last 2 weeks.
Any of these parameters can be altered and are essentially " If This/Then That" formulas that you can alter and modify to match what you are looking for in a playlist. You can add or subtract parameters according to your wishes. If you want to edit one of the preset playlists to practice, you can see your changes event live .
Creating a New Smart Playlist
Now that you have a better idea of how these smart playlists work, you can create your own for your own purposes! To get started, go to the File menu and choose New Smart Playlist.
You will again be greeted by the Edit Playlist window again this time the perimeters will be empty, allowing you to start populating yours. You'll be able to request the Dating Music playlist , audiobooks, movies, TV shows, and even podcasts. You can then start selecting the more specific scopes such as Artist, Year, BPM and many others.
Once you add more than one reign you can request your Encounter Playlist All rules or Any rules. This means that if you choose All your selections will have to match all of your chosen criteria before it appears. If you select Any of the rules, the corresponding songs will just have to meet one of the rules to appear. This will definitely give you a wider range of gear so keep that in mind when selecting rules.
You can also limit the Playlist Size to a certain number of songs and they can also randomly produce . The playlist will be updated live based on your library, so if you have a playlist created for New Rock Music, any new items will be added to your playlist if your rules are set accordingly. You can also randomly choose songs from your criteria in this more restricted format, potentially giving you 25 new songs from a given genre any time you play your playlist.
Smart Playlists are a very useful feature of iTunes that I don't think many music lovers take advantage of. The short set up process can be a bit more intrusive than your standard drag-and-drop method, but the results will generally result in a more organized and resourceful playlist tailored to your needs.