How to create playlists in iTunes

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How to create playlists in iTunes

In our previous iPod 101 segment, we learned how to “import” audio CDs using iTunes. More likely than not, your library is now quite large - if you don’t already have more than a thousand songs, you will soon. In no time at all, you will find that the most enjoyable way to listen to your audio collection is not “shuffling” through your entire library. If your library is like mine, you’ll quickly get frustrated when, after finishing a goosebump-inducing listen of Samuel Barber’s beautiful “Adagio for Strings,” you immediately head ruthlessly into The Beastie Boys’ “Fight for your Right to Party.” It just doesn’t work.

The solution? Playlists. Make a playlist (or collection of songs) for the ride to work. Make a “mix” of music to study to, or to exercise to. Make a collection of “Love Songs” or “Hate Songs.” Put together a “Blissful Blend” or a “Melancholy Mix.” The possibilities are endless. Read on and I will walk you through creating your own custom “mixes” in Apple’s iTunes.

iTunes offers two fundamental types of playlists. The manual playlist, which this article will cover, allows you to manually create your custom mixes however you wish. The “smart” playlist, featured in our next iPod 101 segment, is automatically generated from criteria you specify. These may include genre restrictions, ratings, keywords, date added, the number of times a track has been played, and more.

The quickest way to get started in creating a custom playlist is clicking the “+” icon in the bottom left corner of the iTunes library window. You will see a new “untitled playlist” appear in the “Source” column on the left side. The text will be highlighted already, so start typing and give it a name. I’ll call mine “For the Road.”

Click screenshot for larger view

Click on your playlist title, and you’ll see that there are no songs present, as we must manually add them.

To add songs to your playlist, begin by clicking on “Library” in the source column. Scroll through your library, and find a song you’d like to add. To add it to a playlist, simply drag the song title on top of the playlist name in the Source column, and let go. If you’d like to double check that the song was added, click on the playlist title.

Want to add a few songs at once? You can select multiple songs by holding down shift or control while clicking on song titles. Then simply drag any one of the selected songs onto the playlist. All selected songs will be added.

Continue adding songs as desired. When you’re finished, you can re-arrange the order of the songs in the playlist by simply dragging them around.

Are you catching the interface motif? Apple loves drag-and-drop. In fact, here are a couple useful but lesser-known drag-and-drop tips:

First, playlists can be added to each other. Want to add all of your “Blissful Blend” to your “Exercise Ecstasy” playlist? In the Source column, simply drag the “Blissful Blend” title on top of “Exercise Ecstasy.” It’s that easy.

Second, have you ever wanted to add all songs in a genre to a playlist? Wanted to add everything from one artist? An entire album? Go to your Library, and click “Browse” in the top right corner to show the 3-column browse menus. Any genre title, artist name, or album name itself can be dragged onto a playlist title, adding the entire category to it. In addition, you can also drag into an empty area in the “Source” column to create a new playlist automatically. For example: In the picture below, I can either:

(1) Add “Dark Side of the Moon” to my “For the Road” playlist, by dragging and dropping the song onto the playlist , -or-

(2) Automatically create a “Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon” playlist by dragging it into an empty area in the ‘Source’ column.

Click screenshot for larger view

Result: (2) Automatically create a “Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon” playlist by dragging it into an empty area in the ‘Source’ column:

Other tips & features:

To view any playlist, the music store, or the radio features of iTunes in a separate window, double-click on their title in the source column. Shuffle & Repeat settings are independent between playlists - very helpful.

Enjoy listening to your playlists! Their simplicity and function truly enhance the experience of listening to digital music - both in iTunes and on the iPod!

Stay tuned for iPod 101: iTunes “Smart Playlists” next week.

Jerrod Hofferth is a Forum Administrator and Contributing Editor for iLounge. Jerrod is an Aerospace Engineering Student at Arizona State University, and enjoys spending his free time both with his girlfriend of 6 years and new 15” Aluminum Powerbook.

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Next: How to create smart playlists in iTunes

Previous: 2003: "The Year of Digital Music"

Comments

1

oooh! am i the first to post a comment? anyhow, thanks for this lesson. the part about combining [thru drag-n-drop] playlists was REALLY useful. havent tried it yet, but i have a few plans. cant wait for the next weeks class!

Posted by cursif on December 30, 2003 at 7:39 AM (PDT)

2

All the software is so easy to use and works so well, I-Pods rule…...everyone gotta get one! Oh yeah the calender, datebook is great just need more and better games for i-pod….come on Mac design some new games on the next update.

Posted by Klegz on December 30, 2003 at 4:29 PM (PDT)

3

Thanx for the tips, but I think there should be a way to open a new playlist in a new window so you can drag the songs to the list where you want them. If there is a way to do this please let us know.

Posted by seano on December 30, 2003 at 4:44 PM (PDT)

4

seano— At the very end of the article, I state that any playlist, or the music store, or the radio feature can be opened in a new window by double-clicking on it.

Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on December 30, 2003 at 5:22 PM (PDT)

5

While using the windows version of itunes, is it possible to print out a playlist of the songs?

Posted by Southside on December 31, 2003 at 4:11 AM (PDT)

6

Southside—

Kind of. Open a playlist, and do Edit—>Select All.

Now do Edit—>Copy (or right click).

Paste into MS Excel or a similar program. There, you can edit out any columns you don’t want, format it however you wish, and—of course—print.

That’s as good as it gets for now.

Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on December 31, 2003 at 7:26 AM (PDT)

7

can you make a playlist that is arranged by album, instead of indiviual songs

Posted by jason Aires on January 1, 2004 at 1:46 PM (PDT)

8

Yes Jason you can, simply click the title of the album column and you can sort it by album up or down, this will work for any other column as well.

Dougs.

Posted by Dougs on January 1, 2004 at 3:22 PM (PDT)

9

I am having trouble Burning Playlists to CD.

I can’t seem to find the burn icon referred to in Help.

I imagine it should be quite straight forward, can anyone help with this its driving me nuts.

Posted by Bjp on January 2, 2004 at 6:02 AM (PDT)

10

Upper right hand corner of itunes you’ll see the burn disk icon, it’s circular

Posted by darnskippy on January 2, 2004 at 6:26 AM (PDT)

11

I have made several playlists on iTUNES but when I plug in my iPOD, the playlists do not automatically load onto the iPOD…although any new song I have put into iTUNES DOES load up automatically…what do I nned to do to get my playlists onto my iPOD?

Posted by Mach84 on January 2, 2004 at 1:35 PM (PDT)

12

Can I make and transfer a playlist to my iPod without adding the tunes to my library?

Posted by ecwo3 on January 3, 2004 at 5:07 AM (PDT)

13

I’m already in playlist overflow mode. Can I create folders in which to store various types of playlists?

Posted by valrichardson on January 3, 2004 at 6:21 AM (PDT)

14

Whats the little check box before the individual song titles for??

Posted by ccj on January 3, 2004 at 9:51 AM (PDT)

15

This is a really simple question with hopefully a really simple solution.

How can I get my iPod playlist to be in alphabetical order by song title? I have it sorted that way in iTunes but it doesn’t seem to want to update the list order in iPod when I synchronize.

Can anyone help, please?

Thanks and happy new year!

Posted by Cheryl on January 3, 2004 at 2:17 PM (PDT)

16

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i am a recent ipod owner and itunes user before i was using itunes i was using Realone PLayer for all my music and old mp3 player i ripped all of my cds onto Realone but when i go to itunes i only have about 1.5 gigs when my music library is far larger than that. will someonle help me please find a way to import all my RealOne ripped cds to itunes? Thanks

Posted by TheiPodDude in southern oregon on January 3, 2004 at 10:09 PM (PDT)

17

I’m new to iTunes. Found a problem when copying songs (from CD 2 itunes) that merge into each other. Solution:
Before copying highlite the songs and under “Advanced” select “Join CD Tracks”.
You can re-label the song to reflect this action e.i. “Shoo Be Doo/Candy-O”

Posted by m1 on January 6, 2004 at 4:43 PM (PDT)

18

While I love how Itunes (Windows) works with my new IPod, I’m having some issues with using it with my old/“scroll wheel only” Ipod. Specifically, songs that I imported to my library via Itunes by dragging from CD can not be moved into my old Ipod (but can be moved into my new one).

Any suggestions on how to resolve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by brucepiv on January 6, 2004 at 7:14 PM (PDT)

19

Hello IPOD/Itunes users…..

Where in the computer are Itunes’ playlists saved?

And can you specify where you’d like the playlists to be saved?

Thank you.

Posted by Jason Zomick on January 6, 2004 at 8:37 PM (PDT)

20

@brucepiv : Your problem is, that iTunes rips music by default as AAC (m4a) format. This format is understood by the new iPods. For the 1G and 2G iPods you have to update the iPod software to V1.3. Another (but not so preferable) method, is to change in iTunes to .mp3.

Hope that helps

Posted by FreeBird on January 7, 2004 at 3:44 AM (PDT)

21

I need help. I need to edit the names of the artist or the song. I cant figure out how to do this i spent like 1 hour trying to do it but gave up. Its probly something simple. Can Someone please help me its very annoyin to me.

Posted by Eric on January 8, 2004 at 11:12 AM (PDT)

22

To brucepiv: If u’re not using the “Latest” of Apple upgrades on software, run and download ‘em now. I had similar problem. Upgraded my ipod now everything works as advertised. I was also told to delete any software u may have loaded out of box. U only need the latest version of itunes and your ipod period.

Posted by m1 on January 9, 2004 at 3:45 PM (PDT)

23

My son & I both have ipods. He has a mac, I have windows. He has an extensive itunes list, some of it I like and some I don’t. I want to be able to create a playlist for my ipod and one exclusively for him on his mac. Is there anyway to do this, so when we add songs it updates our selected playlist only.

Also, my daughter uploaded some of his songs off his mac and now wants them to show up on her itunes list, but we can’t seem to do that. She has it on her ipod but we can’t get it to copy to her hard drive.

Thank you, thank you, thank!

Posted by Barry on January 15, 2004 at 7:41 AM (PDT)

24

I’d like to clear some songs out of my library, but keep them on my iPod the next time I do a transwfer. Is this possible?

Posted by ecwo3 on January 16, 2004 at 3:32 PM (PDT)

25

My playlist disappeared in my ipod menu…anyone know how to get it back?!?

Posted by IpodUser1 on February 3, 2004 at 12:49 AM (PDT)

26

I am intersted in purchasing the 10,000 song capacity ipod and need to know if I will need to keep the thousands of songs on my pc even after I transfer them to the ipod?

Posted by patrick brutus on February 3, 2004 at 4:40 AM (PDT)

27

Patrick—

Having copies of your music on your PC is by far the most convient way to do it…

...However, no—You do not need to keep all the songs on your computer. Use Manual sync mode, and you can delete them after you transfer.

However, you lose several nifty features this way, and you can’t ignore the threat of losing all your music should your iPod fail or need to be updated.

In my opinion, if you’re planning on buying a $500 40GB iPod, it would be a good “accessory” to buy a $50 40GB Hard Drive for your PC as well.

Posted by Jerrod H. in TX on February 3, 2004 at 4:53 AM (PDT)

28

When I first got my ipod the playlists showed up when I browse. Now though I can’t get playlists that appear on itunes to download into my ipod and the playlists selection option no longer appears on my ipod. Anyone had this happen before? Solutions?

Posted by Bennett Thompson on February 9, 2004 at 4:41 PM (PDT)

29

Can someone tell me if it is possible to change the delay time between songs on a plylist?

Thanks

Posted by jeffj on February 29, 2004 at 4:59 AM (PDT)

30

Is there a way to configure itunes for more than one user….each with their own library?

Posted by michaelu on April 2, 2004 at 7:20 PM (PDT)

31

“Can someone tell me if it is possible to change the delay time between songs on a plylist”

With Media Center you can set various preferences for between track intervals - rapid, slow, fade-out, cross-fade, aggressive, gapless, etc.

“Is there a way to configure itunes for more than one user….each with their own library”

With Media Center you can use the Library Manager to define different libraries (of songs and playlists) for different users, and load on-demand. You can also specify which different libraries be served up to other connecting Media Center clients on the intranet or across the Internet.

Posted by thread crapping on April 2, 2004 at 10:45 PM (PDT)

32

Hello,

I have created a number of playlists, but I can only rearrange the songs of one playlist and the others will not allow me to drag and drop songs. How can I re-sort my other playlists?

Thanks

Posted by Dorian on May 12, 2004 at 2:21 PM (PDT)

33

Can you create playlists on the iPod itself? Like if you are on a trip and have 13 hours to kill while you’re flying over the Pacific with your iPod and no laptop?

Posted by Zreet on June 2, 2004 at 9:47 AM (PDT)

34

When connecting my ipod to my new computer which has a different library it asks if I want to replace the content on my ipod with the existing itunes library.

How do i merge the two?

Posted by Tony on July 15, 2004 at 1:19 PM (PDT)

35

Possibly a dumb question:
On the iPod, is there any way to scroll quickly. I have 3500 songs. It’s annoying to be looking a song starting with “Y” and finding out you need to scroll down song-by-song for several minutes to find it. (This is on the iPod—of course, in iTunes you can just use the mouse and the scroll-bar.)

Posted by Bernard HP Gilroy on August 12, 2004 at 1:20 PM (PDT)

36

HOW DO I SWITCH THE IPOD TO AUTOMATIC MODE WITHOUT HAVING TO REPLACE ALL THE SONGS I’VE ALREADY UPLOADED?

Posted by Kervis on August 17, 2004 at 8:15 AM (PDT)

37

I didn’t keep any of the songs on my ipod in my itunes library. I want to make a playlist in order to burn a cd, but i can’t drag the songs from my ipod into the playlist on my computer. My ipod is on manual update and i was wondering if there’s a way to get all of my songs into my library? Or if there’s a way to get the songs on my ipod to burn to a cd?

Posted by Katy on August 21, 2004 at 7:55 AM (PDT)

38

Got this message
An error occurred while accessing the CDDB server. Check your internet connection and configuration
I am on broadband and it used to work fine until we lost everything from pc.
How do i get it to work? please help

Posted by Sarah on September 9, 2004 at 11:30 AM (PDT)

39

I don’t think this is possible, but I have an awfully large number of smart and normal playlists and wondered if it is possible to group them together somehow, to make navigation between them easier. While I can use the same first word to keep them in order, it becomes unweildly to scroll through long lists.

Any suggestions? Or do you think that this would be a feature in future versions of iTunes?

Thanks

Posted by Simon on September 20, 2004 at 3:21 AM (PDT)

40

DO YOU HAVE LARGE MUSIC FILES THAT CAN BE UPLOADS AT ONCE OF VARIOUS ARTISTS?

Posted by Randy on September 28, 2004 at 7:49 AM (PDT)

41

When I try to check the Audio CD track names, I get this error - how do i solve this?

“An error occured while accessing the cddb server.
Check your internet connection and configuration”

What do I do??

Posted by Problem on October 3, 2004 at 7:28 AM (PDT)

42

When I try to check the Audio CD track names, I get this error - how do i solve this?

“An error occured while accessing the cddb server.
Check your internet connection and configuration”

What do I do??

Posted by Problem on October 3, 2004 at 7:29 AM (PDT)

43

Recently acquired iPod. When deleting tracks individually from iPod folder all tracks disappeared and then the folder disppeared also. When linkin iPod to PC automatic upgrading of iPod folder not possible as no folder. Restored. Now cannot add more than one specific Playlist even manually
Any ideas? Seems as though iPod needs to be reformatted but is there no other way?

Posted by MD4 on October 15, 2004 at 7:44 AM (PDT)

44

I have 40gb 4th Gn Ipod and i have music filled with office pc but i have problem i have some music on my laptop and want to sink it with my ipod without loosing the previous music from my office pc, how can i do that please help me.

Posted by Diamond on October 24, 2004 at 11:04 AM (PDT)

45

Is it possible to creat playlists on ipod itself?? I heard that,How it is possible how we can edit playlists on ipod itself not with the pc, i mean on the go.

Posted by Diamond on October 24, 2004 at 11:10 AM (PDT)

46

any ideas on playlists i can create? i have an exersize one but thats all.

Posted by joca on October 29, 2004 at 12:44 PM (PDT)

47

Hi, I’m having trouble accessing songs on my Ipod, from within Itunes. The information is in a light grey text, as opposed to the usual black, and I cannot edit any of it..

Posted by Chloe on October 30, 2004 at 3:27 AM (PDT)

48

Hi,

I’ve got the same problem as Sarah (Sep 9 1.30pm). It used to work but now I get:

An error occurred while accessing the CDDB server. Check your internet connection and configuration.

I can manually access the CDDB website and get the details for the CD, but iTunes can’t - can anyone help? Cheers.

Posted by Sy on November 2, 2004 at 12:57 AM (PDT)

49

After searching through the Apple discussion boards I found a solution to the ‘error connecting to CDDB server’ issue.

The problem (for me) was that Wannadoo ISP uses a proxy server by default.

The solution is to go in IE to Tools/Internet Options / Connections and uncheck the ‘use proxy server box’

Posted by Sy on November 2, 2004 at 10:41 AM (PDT)

50

I downloaded a great deal of music from iTunes onto my iPod. Then, because of space limitations on my hard drive, I deleted some of the music files from my iTunes library, leaving the files on the iPod itself intact. Other than an on-the-go playlist, is it possible for me to create playlists for the iPod using the songs on the iPod itself? In other words, do the songs need to be pulled from the iTunes library in order to create any sort of playlist on the iPod itself? Any light you can shed will be greatly appreciated.

Posted by gdlynne on November 26, 2004 at 10:52 PM (PDT)

51

By Katy on Aug 21, 04 9:55 am

Posted by skocchi on December 14, 2004 at 6:46 AM (PDT)

52

I was wondering the exact same thing (about making playlists directly from ipod and not using the itunes library)!!! that’s crazy… my question was the last question posted!!!

Posted by gduerson on February 23, 2007 at 8:24 PM (PDT)

53

I read post 17 about joining 2 tracks from the same CD when importing. Is there a way to join songs from different CD’s/artists so that they always play together even when in shuffle mode?

Posted by allison merriman on May 26, 2008 at 2:47 PM (PDT)

54

Thanks! that really helped.

Posted by bdeb on June 28, 2008 at 6:41 AM (PDT)

55

Hello:
One day I found my entire iTunes library mssing. Upon reloading the last backup, I saw that all the playlists were gone. I have 12,000 songs and playlists are my predominant mode of organization. The playlists are still on my iPod, but I can’t sync it without losing them, can I? Is there some way to import the playlists folder into iTunes and thereby recover my old organization? Thanks.

Posted by Jerry C. Barnette on July 30, 2008 at 7:12 PM (PDT)

56

I have created my Playlist but it does not appear on my IPOD only on the Itunes how do I get it to go on to my IPOD. I have sync the ipod but no luck can anyone help.

Posted by Paul on October 5, 2008 at 9:51 AM (PDT)

57

why cant i make a cd with unpurcahsed songs?

Posted by timmay on October 20, 2008 at 5:27 PM (PDT)

58

Thanks, I learned what I wanted, and have added the playlist.

Posted by Shelley on October 27, 2008 at 1:46 AM (PDT)

59

Jason in #8 I believe would like to sort ALL the albums in the playlist. Mine is sorting Album by artist. How can I sort ALL the albums?

Posted by Stephen Robbins on November 4, 2008 at 4:33 AM (PDT)

60

If I have a playlist on the iPod device itself how can I then get it back into iTunes, under the playlists?

I have a playlist on the iPod but can’t seem to get it back into iTunes, I sync manually so that it does not do all playlist and music as I only have a 2GB iPod Nano, 1st generation.

Posted by Chirag V. Shah on November 4, 2008 at 5:20 PM (PDT)

61

I just recv’d an ipod touch I need to know how I can manually name cd’s i am going to download onto iTunes so they can be organized ? Are all files after they are put onto Itunes directed to the recently added file ? Do you move them all from the recently added file to where you want them by dragging them?

Posted by Tim on December 27, 2008 at 1:03 PM (PDT)

62

i have a i pod shuffle 8gb and i filled 4gb of space with music and videos, but my playlist ( Recently added, 90 song’s ect.. ) dissapeared and only on-the-go appears how do i get back my playlists

Posted by felipe on March 2, 2009 at 12:27 PM (PDT)

63

So I just installed the latest version of itunes - identified music folder on my HD - imported songs into the itunes library and even made playlists - but nothing shows on device (touch) listing . . . nothing transfers - even though contacts and calendars do ... what am I doing wrong- and how do I get to put songs ONTO the touch and playlists too? so fat iTunes is just a HD music player for me!

Posted by fastfinger on May 8, 2009 at 5:42 PM (PDT)

64

Hi jerrod this is zuber iwant know tht i have by misteken deleted the playlist of my i pod i am talking abt playlist which is connected to ipod currently i cant listen songs so i want to know wht is the procedure to reset the playlist…Plz reply me…thnx….

Posted by Zuber on May 29, 2009 at 2:05 PM (PDT)

65

I just wanted to say thanks for the tips. I was getting really frustrated until I read over your page. It helped a lot!
Thanks again

Posted by Sarah on June 3, 2009 at 6:18 PM (PDT)

66

Hi, I have just accidentally deleted a playlist in iTunes V8. Is there anyway to undelete it?

Posted by JohnB on June 5, 2009 at 9:56 AM (PDT)

67

I have playlists in iTunes, with tracks cropped at start/finish, cross-fading and volume adjusted. Is it possible to burn all that to CD? When I’ve tried, all the enhancements are ignored…

Posted by dbp on June 20, 2009 at 1:58 AM (PDT)

68

Hi,this is totally off topic. I was given an iPod with a screen that is cracked so I am having to memorize the menus. Can anyone give me a “flow chart” on how to access the playlists I have created? Thx

Posted by shadow67 on July 1, 2009 at 7:46 AM (PDT)

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