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Every once in a while, my iPod does a spectacular job at shuffling the perfect set of songs. Is there any way to save this sequence to a playlist so I can replay it again in the future?

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Which model of iPod is it? – MattiSG Nov 18 '11 at 14:33

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+50

You have two options.

1. On-the-road compatible, but not so user-friendy

  1. Create a new playlist on the iOS device (iPod Touch is one, of course).
  2. Then, add the songs one by one from memory.

They will be kept in sort order, and the playlist will be synced to iTunes for future use.

2. Much easier, but with listening limitations

  1. Sync with iTunes.
  2. Select the Library source on the left panel.
  3. Sort the tracks by “last played”, by clicking on the title of the “Last played” column. If this column is not visible, right-click on any column's title and check the corresponding item (or hit ⌘J and check it).
  4. Find the set of songs you liked and select it.
  5. Create a new playlist from this selection (⌘⇧N).
  6. Reverse the sort order of the newly created playlist by clicking on the (empty) title of the column that contains the play index (numbers at the extreme left of a song's title).

The only problem with this solution is that if you listen to one of the songs that were in your set, it will have its Last played field updated, and won't be in the proper place… So this solution is usable only if you can sync pretty quickly after listening to the set, or can remember a few songs' positions, or if you avoid listening to them altogether before the next sync.

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up vote 2 down vote

From any list of songs in iTunes (like for example, when you're on iTunes DJ) you can select the range of songs by clicking while holding the Shift key. Once all songs are highlighted you can go the File menu and select New Playlist From Selection. A new playlist will be shown at the bottom of the Playlist section containing the exact same song selection and ordering. Hope this helps.

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What about from the iPod directly? I am not connected to a computer at the moment. The shuffle itself occurred only on the iPod. – Matt Rockwell Oct 17 '11 at 13:01
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Sorry, I don't know of a way to do this from within the iPod. There are many ways to find out from within iTunes once you have access to it and sync. For instance, you could check the Recently Played smart playlist, you could create a new smart playlist that would show only songs from today and in ascending Last Played order (so they would be listed exactly as they appeared on your iPod), etc. You can then use New Playlist From Selection from any of these smart playlists to save them to a static one. I understand this is not exactly what you're looking for, as it involves iTunes. Good luck. – Christian Correa Oct 17 '11 at 13:26
Ok I'm plugged into iTunes now, how do I find the recently played song from the iPod in iTunes? – Matt Rockwell Oct 17 '11 at 13:33
It's the smart playlist titled Recently Played on the left side right where all of the smart playlists are. – Christian Correa Oct 17 '11 at 14:21
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What iPod do you have? The iPod Shuffle is the only iPod that, to my knowledge, does not update the Last Played field for each song in your library. All other iPods and iOS devices should update this field--which in turn should reflect on the Recently Played playlist. – Christian Correa Oct 17 '11 at 14:52
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up vote 1 down vote

No.

But there is laborous workaround: If you don't use star rating normaly or using it but never use one star (or two) then go through every song that was playing during shuffle and star them.

After that sync to iTunes, create a Smart Playlist and sort it by the last played column. If you need to sync it back to iPod choose Copy to Play Order. More on this here.

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