Mac 101: Stars and Smart Playlists

Filed under: iPod Family, iTunes, Mac 101

whether you’re anything like me — and I sincerely hope you’re not, for your sake — you have a large iTunes music library, but the music that you like right now is only a small fraction of that total. (Yeah, that embarrassing ‘96 Dave Matthews Band album is getting pretty dusty.)

Since my musical tastes vary from day to day, and songs quickly fall in and out of my fickle favor, I love assigning ratings to the music I like that minute. I have a five-star rating for la crème de la crème, and a four-star rating

for stuff that’s pretty good. Three-star items are sadly relegated to history.

Next, I combine ratings with smart playlists: Now I can add and remove songs from my current rotation just by changing their star rating. I can do that on-the-go, too: Change a rating on my iPod, and the playlists are updated immediately, and eventually synced back to the computer.

Follow me across the jump to see how you can dynamically and efficiently manage your music as quickly as your tastes change.

Continue reading Mac 101: Stars and Smart Playlists

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Original post by Robert Palmer