5 Smart Playlists to help you manage your iTunes library

I have a playlist named Xmas which selects tracks with "Xmas" in the Comments field. It was quick to set up and, when the season comes, is easy to include in sync profiles.

my smart playlists are my favorite playlists. however whenever I sync my recently added playlist, it doesnt show up in order on my ipod touch. its SUPER annoying... anyone else have this issue?

If you're having trouble with your smart playlist, see here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3044

If you follow the rules in the TUAW article above, you shouldn't have any problems (they have the Kind is X rule.)

How can I have a smart playlist remove an album after one pla? I made one that puts new music on the iPod as described in this article.

Every January I make sure that all Holiday tunes are filtered OUT using smart playlists.

It's the most thankful I've ever been for the smart playlist feature. :-)

i'll be covering itunes playlist in the near future here: alternapop.com
not only 'how', but 'why', etc.

Does anyone know of a way to make a smart playlist containing the most played songs in a week (or any other given time period really)? I've been trying to figure out a way to do this for a long time. It would be great to have a playlist of something like the 50 songs I've been listening to most in a week or a month. The problem is, it just goes to play count, so any songs with high plays counts that I've played even just one in the week make it onto the playlist. Thoughts?

For those who have large music libraries can add something like "Last Played: Not in 3 months" to keep a smart playlist fresh.

Another trick for smaller (8GB) iPods is "Select '200' songs by 'Least Recently Played'". Combine that with whatever other criteria you use for your smart playlists and you'll always have fresh music on your iPod/iPhone.

In either case, once you listen to a song it is removed from the playlist, meaning that the playlist is always "fresh".

Smart playlists have completely changed the way I listen to music! The larger the library, the more tools you need to keep most of your music from sinking into obscurity. Here as some of the ways I use smart playlist:

"Forgotten Favorites": Songs that I've rated 3+ stars, and have not been played in the last 6 months

"The Hot", "25 or 4 to 5", "The Shiz": songs that I've rated at least 3, 4, 5 songs respectively (25 or 4 to 5 is a reference to the Chicago song. get it?)

"Best Of ___": For my favorite artists, I have a playlist for each that contain only songs from them that I've rated 3+ stars.

"___ Unrated": Whenever I get a large chunk of music all at once (e.g. 1000 songs from showcasing SXSW Artists each year - totally legal!) I like to make sure I rate each song. So I drop all the songs into its own playlist, then create a "___ Unrated" smart playlist. I just keep listening and rating until they are all drained from that list.

"The 2008 / 2009 Worthy Lists": I have a folder for each year, with playlists for each month inside them. Since I get 5-10 new albums a month, I organize them my dropping them into playlist that corresponds to the month / year I got the music. Then for each year I create a smart playlist that contains the songs that I've rated 3+ stars.

The "favorite songs" playlist doesn't even make sense, unless you want a random list of all songs you've played more than "x" times...and I actually can't see why you would want that. You could, however, create an accurate, ordered, "top 50" (or whatever number you'd like) songs list by doing the following:

Match the following rule
Play count is greater than 0
Limit to 50 items selected by most often played
Live updating

voila!