Creating Smart Playlists on ITunes

One of the best things about having an iPod is having the ability to organize your music in way that's convenient to your music listening habits. With iTunes, you can create two different types of folders that help you to find what you want to hear quickly and easily. This guide will take you through the ins and outs of creating "Smart Playlists", or automatically created folders, of your favorite music, by artist, album, genre, and a whole lot more!

Smart Playlists

The easiest way to organize your music on iTunes is through a "Smart Playlist". A"Smart Playlist" is smart because all you have to do is create a term that's searchable through the program and iTunes does the rest. For example, you can create a "Smart Playlist" of an artist, an album, a musical genre, or a myriad of other things. When you input the search term you want, iTunes will automatically create a playlist with all of the tunes that fit your selection.

How to create a Smart Playlist

To create a "Smart Playlist", you go to the "File" dropdown menu at the top of the screen, then select "New Smart Playlist." On the ensuing window, there is another drop down menu for the category, or "rule" from which you'd like to create your list. Some of the more useful categories include artist, album, genre, or year, but there is a host of other choices you can make as well.

Next, type in the information for your list and click "OK". The new "Smart Playlist" has been created and will show up as a folder in the sidebar of iTunes, as well as on your iPod (once you sync it). Here are a couple of examples:

In the first example, if I wanted to create a playlist of all the Michael Jackson songs in my library, I would choose "Artist", and then type the words "Michael Jackson". The program will automatically create a folder containing all of the Michael Jackson songs in my iTunes library.

In another example, let's say I really love R&B music. iTunes classifies most of its music by genre, including pop, rock, alternative, disco, etc. I could create a "Smart Playlist" for all of my R&B music by selecting "Genre" in the drop down menu and typing in R&B. Voila! I now have all of the R&B songs in my iTunes library in one, easy to access folder.

Creating "Smart Playlists" is super easy and is a great way to start organizing your favorite music on your iPod. A great added feature of these "Smart Playlists" is that when you add new music to your iTunes library, the program will automatically add the songs to your smart playlist. Happy listening!

Stay tuned for more tutorials on how to make the most of your iTunes/iPod.

For other tutorials and information on iPods, see:

For new iPod users: A step by step guide for downloading music on to your iPod or iPhone

Free and handy iPhone apps

The convenience and ease of iPods renders CD's obsolete