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March 30, 2010 1:10 PM

Is there any way to sync my voice notes with my iphone that doesn't involve them ending up in my music section?

So I record a voice note on the iphone. Great.
Then it syncs to my itunes. Great.
And in Itunes it shows up in my voice notes. Great.
But then it also shows up in my music section and at some point starts playing when I have people over. Not so great.

Is there some simple thing on the iphone or itunes I'm overlooking that puts it in one section and NOT the other?

posted by rileyray3000 to Technology (8 answers total)

There are a couple work arounds for this.

You can uncheck that file from your music library, then it will not get played, but you will still see it.

You can also right click, get info, and categorize it as a podcast. Then it will not show up in music library, but will also not automatically delete when removed from iphone either.

Pick your medicine I guess. Unfortunately neither of these options are automatic. I seems to be a known bug that causes it to begin with. Hopefully it will get squashed out in the future.
posted by travis08 at 1:34 PM on March 30, 2010

I should warn you, that if you use the technique of classifying them as a podcast, they will continue to get added every time you synch your iphone, so your best bet is to just uncheck them so they do not get played.
posted by travis08 at 1:38 PM on March 30, 2010

I created a smart playlist that includes almost everything in my library, but not quite. I filter out voice memos, internet radio stations, holiday songs, and anything shorter than 1:00, longer than 8:00, or rated below three stars. I use it as my primary library as it includes only the things I really want to hear on shuffle. A similar approach might work for you.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 1:58 PM on March 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

True story: I used voice memo to record a personal log for some therapy work. I then synced at some point and forgot about it. I eventually migrated my music library to work where I decided to share it on the LAN. So at some point my coworkers could have heard some very much not-work-safe recordings of me bemoaning my life.

I don't use voice memos anymore, nor share my music at work.

Therapy is on-going.

As to actually helping you: Is there a voice memo app that maintains a separate datastore and doesn't sync into iTunes' music collection?
posted by chairface at 3:04 PM on March 30, 2010

Evernote lets you do voice notes and syncs automatically.
posted by Scientifik at 11:39 PM on March 30, 2010

Instead of classifying them as a podcast, you can classify them as audiobooks. That's how I classify the recording of classes I make, as long as you give them the same Album title, they're grouped together as a single neat audiobook.
posted by exhilaration at 10:46 AM on March 31, 2010

You can mark them to be skipped when shuffling (get info, options) no matter what type you assign to them.

You really play your entire library at once?? I have my music very much segregated by mood with smart playlists and never ever listen to a shuffle of everything.
posted by olecranon at 10:17 PM on March 31, 2010

You could make a smart playlist that holds everything except voice notes. When friends are over, play that.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:50 AM on April 1, 2010