In iTunes, why do songs I uncheck not play during shuffled playback?

September 12, 2004 1:09 AM

In iTunes, why do songs I uncheck not play during shuffled playback? I just want to uncheck songs I don't want on the iPod and let 'em play normally in the library. It's easier than making a playlist for the iPod each time I add new albums. Alternatively, how do you manage your library when it exceeds the size of your iPod?
posted by riffola to computers & internet (12 comments total)

I just want to uncheck songs I don't want on the iPod and let 'em play normally in the library.

It would be great if it worked that way, but it doesn't. The checkbox is a little overloaded: it tells iTunes what songs to sync, play, and import/export. There's no way to specify different sets for those functions.

Alternatively, how do you manage your library when it exceeds the size of your iPod?

Turn off autosync and forget about the checkboxes. Beyond that, it depends on how you want to use the iPod. I have a smart playlist that contains everything I've added to the library in the last 30 days (which is about the longest I go between syncs). When it's time to sync, I flip to the list, select all, and drag it over to the iPod.

You could commandeer some metadata field you're not using (like, say, "Grouping") to manually flag everything you want to sync. Then you could make a smart playlist that contains everything with that flag and sync that list with the iPod.
posted by jjg at 2:36 AM on September 12, 2004

Turn off autosync and forget about the checkboxes

Beware - last time I checked, if you do this, you lose all iPod generated data, such as play count and last played.
posted by ascullion at 3:30 AM on September 12, 2004

I have a smart playlist that adds recently added music and another big fat one that adds the rest of the music I want for sure.

I'm thinking of using the ratings, I'll not rate any of the songs I don't want on the iPod and any song with a rating gets uploaded. That ought to work, I think.

Thanks for the suggestion and warning.
posted by riffola at 7:16 AM on September 12, 2004

I hope I understood correctly what you want to do.
Every Smart Play list has a checkbox that determines if unchecked songs should be included. You could have two practically identical play lists with all your songs (date added in the last 10 years, for example). The one for the Mac/PC should include the unchecked songs while the one for the iPod should not. In the iPod, instead of synchronizing all your library have it synchronize only the play list that doesn’t include the unchecked songs.
posted by golo at 8:12 AM on September 12, 2004

golo, the problem is iTunes won't play unchecked songs on the PC. It'll skip unchecked songs, so that's not optimal, I was hoping there was a way to get iTunes to play unchecked songs and treat them as normal songs, just not transfer them to the iPod.
posted by riffola at 8:19 AM on September 12, 2004

Alternatively, how do you manage your library when it exceeds the size of your iPod?

Smart playlist that contains the least-recently-played 27 GB of songs.
posted by kindall at 9:08 AM on September 12, 2004

I see what you're saying. Un-checked songs will not be played from the library, for my suggestion to work you'd have to play your "global" smart playlist.
The wording on the checkbox that you should deselect (on the mac version at least) is "Match only checked songs".
posted by golo at 9:14 AM on September 12, 2004

Never mind, ignore my comment. The songs will be included in the Play List but will be skipped.
posted by golo at 9:19 AM on September 12, 2004

Here's what I did: after I had checked/unchecked all the songs I wanted on my iPod, and found out that also means those songs are skipped in playback, I was in the exact same situation. So I create a smart playlist included only checked songs with bitrate > 0kbps. Then, I copied that playlist to a new (dumb) playlist called "iPod Songs". Et voila, you can now check all the songs in your library again so they'll play normally.

Also, if you create a smart playlist "iPod Rejects" that just contains songs not in the "iPod Songs" playlist, you'll now have an easy way to add and remove songs from the iPod. Plus, with all the iPod songs in their own playlist, you can see the exact size of that collection so you don't have to guess any more about whether or not they'll fit on the iPod.
posted by Khalad at 11:31 AM on September 12, 2004

I just updated my iPod, after unrating ten gigs worth of stuff. Now I have it auto update with a smart playlist for rated songs merged with the smart playlist featuring all songs added recently.

Thanks for the suggestions!
posted by riffola at 4:42 PM on September 12, 2004

I've created a Smart Play List with a size limit of 3.5 MB for my mini, for everything rated with 3 stars or more, sorted by most recent. This gets me everything I want on the iPod, while leaving all the crap my friends have said "you must listen to this" on my desktop where it belongs.
posted by benjh at 6:44 PM on September 12, 2004

That's a smart idea benjh, I think I'll follow the same practice.
posted by riffola at 12:20 PM on September 13, 2004