I have a Macbook and an iMac. I store my music on my iMac, but via my network, listen to the library using iTunes on the Macbook. Sometimes I want to change the rating from the Macbook. Any way to change the settings on the iMac to allow this?

- David

While there is no way to do this within iTunes itself, there are some Applescripts available from Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes that can be used to assist with this. One such useful script would be Remote Management Scripts v1.3, although there are several others available on Doug’s AppleScripts that can also assist with this.

I think the new Genius Mix Playlists in iTunes 9 are great, but how can I prevent them from playing holiday tunes and Christmas carols in September?

- Nicklas

The simplest way to deal with this is to UNcheck the tracks in iTunes that you do not want to play as part of a Genius Mix or Party Shuffle. iTunes will not play any tracks that are unchecked unless you specifically choose those tracks to play. This includes playback from within any type of playlist, from the normal library browser, or from within a Genius Mix. Further, you can choose whether or not unchecked tracks are synced to your iPod or iPhone, and unchecked tracks are never synced to nor available on the Apple TV.

Note that you can check or uncheck all displayed tracks at once by simply holding down the CTRL key (Windows) or CMD key (Mac) while clicking on a checked or unchecked track; the setting will be modified for all displayed tracks. In combination with the library browser, this can be a handy way to check or uncheck all tracks from a given genre such as Christmas music; simply select the desired genre in the library browser, and then hold down the CTRL or CMD key while clicking on any checked song, and the selected song and all other displayed songs will be unchecked.

Note that this will only affect playback of these tracks in iTunes itself. If you want these unchecked tracks excluded from your Genius Mixes on your iPhone or iPod, you will need to ensure that the option to “Sync only checked songs and videos” is selected in your iPhone or iPod sync preferences in iTunes.

This will prevent any unchecked items from even being synced to your device, which will of course also exclude them from being played back as part of the Genius Mixes on your device.

My laptop is synced to a server at work - everything in My Documents is backed up to the server. I do not want iTunes in My Documents, but I have been unsuccessful in setting it up to stay out of the My Music folder in My Documents. I have not found an exact answer in the archives. They all tend to say things like, “why wouldn’t you want it stored there?” Well, it’s not one bit work related and I really shouldn’t have my iTunes files backed up on the server. Can you help?

- Sarah

Although moving the iTunes folder to another location used to be a complex process involving registry editing, iTunes 7 introduced a built-in method for telling iTunes to simply use another location for the iTunes folder. To choose another location for the iTunes folder, simply hold down the SHIFT key while starting iTunes and you will be prompted to either choose an existing iTunes library in a different location or create a new iTunes library.

Note that if you have an existing iTunes library that you would like to move, you first need to copy the iTunes library to the new location, as the “Choose Library” option must be used to specify an existing iTunes library. The process of actually moving an existing library actually involves two steps: First you would need to move the iTunes Media folder by changing the path in your iTunes advanced preferences and then using the Consolidate Files option to copy the actual files to a new location. Once the files had been copied, you could then shut down iTunes, copy the remaining files over to the new location, and then use the method above to point iTunes to that new location.

More detailed information on how to do this can be found in our our iPod 201 article, Transferring your iTunes Library

I have a third-generation iPod touch and an iMac and am using Snow Leopard. When I sync the iPod touch it will not transfer playlist folders, only the playlists contained within these folders, unlike my iPod nano and my iPod classic. Is there a solution to this problem?

- Anonymous

Unfortunately, this is simply one of the differences with the iPod touch and iPhone from the traditional iPod models. In fact, playlist folders were actually introduced to the other iPod models some time after they first appeared in iTunes itself; despite playlist folders being introduced with iTunes 5 back in 2005, it wasn’t until the fall of 2007 that playlist folder support became available on the iPod itself, with the iPod classic and the third-generation iPod nano.

It is uncertain whether Apple intends to bring similar support to the iPhone OS, but you could certainly submit a feature request at Apple’s iPod touch Feedback Page.

How do you randomize a random playlist? I used to limit my jogging playlist selected by ‘least recently played.’ Every week when I synchronized my iPod I would have different songs. Now I select by ‘random’ and I get a random selection but it never changes. I need to select by something else, click OK and then reselect by ‘random’ in order to get a fresh set of songs. Is there a simpler way?

- Jeff

The problem here is that “Random” in a Smart Playlist selection simply means to choose an initial selection of random tracks, but without any other dynamically changing criteria, the Smart Playlist will not otherwise be updated, as you’ve observed.

One workaround for this is to choose some criteria in the playlist that will cause it to be dynamically refreshed. Including track selection criteria such as last played date, play count, or rating can all be particularly useful for triggering updates of a Smart Playlist—as this information changes for tracks in the playlist, the playlist gets refreshed with new tracks. Note, however, that this will generally only result in those tracks that fail to meet the criteria being dropped from the playlist (a recently-played track, for instance), and individually replaced with new random tracks; it will generally not re-randomize the entire playlist.

If you want to shuffle up a completely random playlist each time, you will have to do this manually. However, there is a relatively simple way to accomplish this: Go to your Smart Playlist that you want to refresh, select all of the tracks in that playlist, and hit the “Delete” key. These tracks will be removed from the playlist (not your iTunes library), and replaced with a new random selection. In fact, you can only remove tracks in this manner from a Smart Playlist that is set to random selection; other limits on playlists are based on fixed rules, so for instance there would be no point in deleting the content from a Smart Playlist based on “least recently played” as the same content would just come back again.