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up vote 11 down vote favorite

I know the functional effect of unchecking a song: it doesn't play (except when explicitly double-clicked) and doesn't sync with an iPod/iPad. But how is this useful? Does Apple officially recommend any sort of usage of the checkboxes? Or, more subjectively, do you make use of the checkboxes in iTunes, and if so, what songs do you check or uncheck and why?

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2  
A vote to close with no comment? GO TEAM! – Philip Regan Jan 4 '11 at 20:58
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Voted to close too. I don't really get the usefulness of this question. – Loïc Wolff Jan 5 '11 at 9:14
5  
Don't close, it's a useful question! The checkbox is puzzling and needs to be explained, and that's exactly what this question is about. – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Jan 5 '11 at 10:15
4 up votes on the question -- seems like some people like. Don't close it. – Ian C.♦ Jan 5 '11 at 14:48

6 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It keeps holiday music out of my playlists, off my iPhone, until I want to overdose on them from December 24th through 25th every year.

For that alone: I love the check box.

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That's actually what prompted this question; I've been wondering what I would uncheck for a long time and it just hit me today to uncheck my Christmas songs instead of deleting them. :) – Ricket Jan 5 '11 at 2:44
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For this usage I have a Smart Playlist called "Good to Play" that has things like "Genre is not Christmas" and "Genre is not Children's" and "Genre is not Audio Book" and "Kind is not Video". – Phrogz Jan 5 '11 at 14:23
@Phrogz: the trouble with filtering out stuff using Smart Playlists is you always have to remember to add your filter-me-out smart list when you're creating new lists. And of course, filter-me-out doesn't work if you use the "fill all available space" option when sync'ing your iPod. Checkboxes are a set-and-forget exclusion filter. – Ian C.♦ Jan 5 '11 at 14:48
up vote 5 down vote

I think you sort of answered your own question as far as "usefulness" of the feature.

As far as a use case I would use the check boxes more when I had a larger capacity iPod that could fit my entire music library. The songs I would uncheck would be skits on hip-hop/rap albums and I have a few theme songs from movies or tv shows I would also uncheck. I would then select the "Only sync checked songs" option in iTunes so I would only have to plug my iPod in and it would automatically sync my library except for those that were unchecked.

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4  
Another use case is to uncheck certain songs in albums or collections that I just don't care to hear or sync but I want other songs within the album, like excluding that odd b-side that the band tacked on as a contractual obligation. – Philip Regan Jan 4 '11 at 21:01
up vote 4 down vote

I uncheck tracks that contain dialogues, like the Pulp Fiction OST, interviews in Beatles at BBC, or an interview at the end of the Aqualung 25th Anniversary.

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good choice in tunes – Ryan Sharp Jan 5 '11 at 1:10
up vote 2 down vote

There are a few good case scenarios here to show why they exist. One for myself is that I have a lot of lectures in my iTunes library, but do not want to listen to them regularly. Unchecking them will ensure they neither sync to a device, or play unless I selectively choose to play it.

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up vote 2 down vote

Almost all the answers so far seem to be things where a smart playlist might be a better solution… but given that, here's mine:

There are a lot of bands that have one great album and a few hit-or-miss albums. For them, I buy the good album + the greatest hits.

But that leaves me with duplicated songs. Yes, they're really good songs, true, but they're still dupes. Those, I check off so they only show up once.

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up vote 0 down vote

They can be used to solve the dreaded "remove all files with exclamation marks" problem. See http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/35813/646

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