Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have a ton of songs that I classify in named playlists, and would like to have an easier way of knowing if a song has been previously classified or not. The thought occurred to me to make a Smart Playlist that will show me songs that meet the following requirements:

  • Media Type must be Music (excludes Music Videos, Movies, TV Shows, Books, Podcasts, etc.)
  • Must not exist in any playlist within the parent Classification folder.
  • Must not exist in the "Unclassifiable" folder.

I can't get the Smart Playlist to populate with all remaining songs:

Smart Playlist Rules for 'Unclassified'

Is it possible to create a Smart Playlist showing all songs not in another playlist?

share|improve this question
It's supposed to be "Is Not" Genres, actually, but it's a moot point. Either way it's set, I get 0 results. I've also tried using "Media Kind is Music" and only specifying the playlists that should have music excluded from. – Jason Salaz♦ Dec 6 '12 at 21:37
That should work. Maybe you should double check your "Unclassifiable" playlist to make sure it doesn't contain all the songs in your library? – Kyle Cronin♦ Dec 7 '12 at 0:55
0 items in Unclassifiable (which is a static playlist, not a Smart Playlist) for the moment. 0 items in Unclassified. – Jason Salaz♦ Dec 7 '12 at 5:23
Hm, I created a similar Smart Playlist in my iTunes and it works fine cl.ly/LRnP – Kyle Cronin♦ Dec 7 '12 at 14:56
I guess it just takes a long time to populate. Because sure enough I come back today and it's suddenly working. – Jason Salaz♦ Dec 8 '12 at 1:10

1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote accepted

It turns out that the screenshot, or at least the correct version, is sufficient:

Smart Playlist Settings

No doubt in part to my tens of thousands of songs, and only a few hundreds currently classified, the playlist took sometime to populate. After reading Kyle's comment, I looked at the playlist and nearly my whole library is now present.

So the answer to this problem can only logically be:

Patience

share|improve this answer
I'm glad it worked finally, but it shouldn't have taken that much time. I have ~7500 songs in my library and iTunes is able to make smart playlists instantly. – Kyle Cronin♦ Dec 8 '12 at 3:00

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.