Playlists

Make playlists and smart playlists, add and arrange songs, import and export .m3u playlists, and keep On-The-Go playlists made on the iPod.

A playlist is a list of songs in the order you choose. A smart playlist fills itself from rules, such as "rating is at least four stars" or "added in the last month". Both kinds sync to your iPod with the same name and order.

#Where playlists are

• Playlists in the sidebar's library section shows every playlist as a cover: a mosaic of the first four album covers in it, or one cover when it holds a single album. A gear marks a smart playlist. Hover over a cover and click the play button to play it, or click the cover to open it.
• Every playlist is also listed under Playlists in the sidebar. Click one to open it, or double-click it to start playing.

Every playlist page has a Playlists back button in the toolbar that returns to the cover grid.

#Make a playlist

There are several ways:

• File › New Playlist (⌘N), or New Playlist… at the bottom of the sidebar's Playlists. Type a name and click Create.
• Select songs or albums, right-click and choose Add to Playlist › New Playlist with These Songs (on albums) or Add to Playlist › New Playlist… (on songs). The new playlist opens, ready for you to name it.
• From the album page's Add to Playlist menu.

#Add songs

• Right-click songs or albums anywhere in your library and choose Add to Playlist, then the playlist.
• On the playlist's page, click Add Songs… in the toolbar. Search for songs, tick the ones you want (Select All and Select None help), and click Add. Only songs that aren't in the playlist yet are listed.

Songs added together go in album order.

#Arrange and remove songs

• Drag songs up or down to change the order.
• Select songs and press Delete, or right-click and choose Remove from Playlist. The songs stay in your library.

Right-clicking songs in a playlist also offers Get Info, Play from Here, Play Next and Add to Up Next. ⌘I opens Get Info for the selected songs (or the whole playlist if none are selected), and its previous and next buttons step through the playlist in order.

#Playlist actions

Right-click a playlist in the sidebar or the Playlists grid for:

The playlist's page shows how many songs it has and how long it lasts, with Play and Shuffle. A playlist brought in from the Music app says "Imported from the Music app".

#Smart playlists

Choose File › New Smart Playlist… (⌥⌘N), or New Smart Playlist… at the bottom of the sidebar's Playlists.

1. Type a name at the top.
2. Choose Match all or any of the following rules.
3. Set up each rule: a field, a condition and a value. Click + to add a rule after this one, or − to remove it.
4. Optionally, turn on Limit to and set how much the playlist holds and how songs are chosen.
5. Turn Live updating on or off.
6. Click OK.

The bottom of the window shows how many songs match as you go. To change the rules later, click Edit Rules in the playlist's toolbar, or right-click it and choose Edit Rules….

#Rule fields

Incomplete (from CD) finds songs imported from a CD that couldn't all be read. See Importing CDs.

#Limit to

Limit to caps the playlist at a number of items, minutes, hours, MB or GB, selected by random, name, album, artist, genre, highest rating, lowest rating, most recently played, least recently played, most often played, least often played, most recently added or least recently added. A random selection stays the same until your library changes, so the playlist doesn't reshuffle every time you look at it.

#Live updating

With Live updating on, the playlist changes by itself as songs are added, played or edited. With it off, it keeps the songs that matched when you last saved its rules. The playlist's page says which.

#Smart playlists on the iPod

A smart playlist whose rules the iPod understands goes to the iPod as a smart playlist, so it keeps updating there as you play. Rules the iPod doesn't have (Incomplete (from CD) and Explicit) can't go with it: a smart playlist that uses one goes to the iPod as an ordinary list of the songs it holds at the time of the sync.

#Playlists on the iPod

Each iPod chooses which playlists it gets. With Entire library, every playlist goes, unless you leave some out with Leave Some Out…; with chosen music, tick the playlists you want in Choose Music…. See Syncing.

#On-The-Go playlists

Playlists you make on the iPod itself (On-The-Go playlists) are saved at the next sync: each becomes a playlist named "On-The-Go 1", "On-The-Go 2" and so on, in your library and on the iPod, and the iPod's On-The-Go list is cleared, as iTunes did.

#Import and export playlist files

#Import

Choose File › Library › Import Playlist… and pick one or more .m3u or .m3u8 files, or drop them on your library. Each becomes a playlist named after its file.

• Songs already in your library are matched by their file.
• Songs whose files are on your Mac but not in your library yet are added to it (copied in, if Settings › General › Adding songs says so).
• Entries from another computer, whose files aren't on this Mac, are found in your library by title, artist and length (or by the file's name).

Afterward, ClassicTunes says how many songs it matched and lists any it couldn't find.

#Export

Select a playlist and choose File › Library › Export Playlist…, or right-click it and choose Export Playlist…. It's saved as an .m3u8 file, which most music apps and players open. Songs inside the folder you save to are written with relative paths, so the folder can be moved together.

#From AppleScript and Shortcuts

Scripts can play, export and list playlists and their tracks, and choose whether a playlist syncs. They can't make or rename playlists.

set destination to POSIX file "/Users/Shared/Road Trip.m3u8"
tell application "ClassicTunes"
    repeat with p in playlists
        log (name of p) & ": " & (count of tracks of p) & " songs"
    end repeat
    play playlist "Road Trip"
    export playlist "Road Trip" to destination
end tell

import with an .m3u or .m3u8 file makes a playlist from it. See AppleScript.

In Shortcuts (macOS 13 and later), use Play Playlist, Import Playlist File and Export Playlist. Choose Music to Sync sets which playlists an iPod or music player gets. See Shortcuts.