My playlists don't funk no more.

April 4, 2007 10:04 AM

How do I make permanent iTunes music playlists with windows?

I often reinstall windows. Everytime I do that, my iTunes playlists disapear. Is there a _convenient_ way of keeping these playlists online, and some tool which will automatically search for the songs and point them to the new location?

posted by markesh to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Everything is saved in an xml file called iTunes Music Library.xml.

Search for it, and just email it to yourself.
posted by four panels at 10:37 AM on April 4, 2007

four panels is right on. You'll find the library file under My Documents>My Music>iTunes.

If you're going to copy that file over, you'll also need to be sure that you don't change the location of any of your music when you reinstall/repartition your drives.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:43 AM on April 4, 2007

If you're keeping your music on an external drive, consider changing your itunes music library location to that drive. This will keep that xml file and the files themselves in sync with eachother.

Here's how to do that.
posted by .taft at 12:19 PM on April 4, 2007

Or, you know, don't use itunes if you're running windows. It's not made for it and it's not the best solution. Use something native like Winamp.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 3:00 PM on April 4, 2007

You could put the playlist name in the 'Comments' section of each song. It will then save the playlist name to the song file itself, so when you reset everything you can just create a smart playlist with a field for Comment Contains [playlist name] and it will automatically recreate that list.

Personally I use the Comments field to perma-store my ratings, but there are several fields most people don't use that can be roped into service.
posted by Paragon at 3:12 PM on April 4, 2007

don't use itunes if you're running windows. It's not made for it and it's not the best solution.

I disagree - I've used nearly every player on the market and keep coming back to iTunes. Winamp, foobar, jajuk, etc - none of them match the ease of use, IMO. iTunes is a bit of a memory hog, but I've been otherwise happy. My only complaint is that there's no linux port.
posted by chrisamiller at 3:21 PM on April 4, 2007