Cascaded AND/OR-expressions in smart playlists

Is there some way to generate smart playlists with a little more complicated logical expressions than ANDs and ORs. Like: (Artist="Alice Cooper" AND Album !="Classicks") OR (Artist="AC/DC") ???
I know I can do it using more playlists and then combining them, but I'd like to have this in 1 smart playlists without all those "dummy"-playlists
thx in advance

No, that is not possible.
I suggest, you ask this to be a feature on this page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
I've done that also. Maybe we'll see this in a future upgrade.
M

Similar Messages

What's the difference with Kind and Media Kind in smart playlists ??

lol i've just discovered Media Kind. so what's Kind ??
what's the difference ? 'cos i've been using Kind all along (although it never seems to work how i wished it to) i guess now i know why....
what's kind

Hi,
Kind is file type - eg AAC audio file, MPEG audio file
Media kind indicates whether it is Music, Audiobook, etc
Jim

How can I change the order of songs in a smart playlist?

Hi there,
I have a question about smart playlists.
I have a smart playlist where all songs rated 5 stars are ordered in descending order, meaning the latest additions first. That works well in iTunes and I can rearrange the songs there without a problem.
But when I start the iPod on my iPhone the order of songs in this playlist is always the same. In my case the latest songs are always put last no matter how I sort the songs in iTunes. I tried to delete and create a new smart playlist but the result is always the same.
Is there a solution?
Thanks for your answers....

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

Smart playlists no longer update dynamically

I have several smart playlists that have a couple of rules... one based on rating and one based on whether or not it is present in a regular playlist. When I change the rating of a song so that it no longer meets the smart playlist's criteria, it remains in the list. It will not update until I sync with the PC. The other criteria, the "regular" playlist, isn't updated... and is present on the iPod as well in my iTunes library, so that's not the issue. I'm running the latest greatest version of iTunes and the iPod touch is a model PD721LL/A, version 8.2; it has over 15GB free, so space isn't a challenge either.
I suspect that there is some sequence of settings that will allow this to update dynamically, but I'm not sure what that would be or where to even attempt it.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Laura Tieri

My results differ from yours.
With iOS 4.0x, 4.1 and 4.2x my smart playlists with live updating were broken. It would start with track 1 of 5, then 2 of 4, then 3 of 3, 4 of 2, then would generally crash the iPod app. If I left the playlist and re-entered it would have removed the entries already played, but I would find that some of the entries that should have played had actually been skipped in m playlist.
With iOS 4.3, my playlists are properly working for me again. Now they play 1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, ... If I return to the playlist while it is playing, I see that the entries that have already played are removed, and if I leave the playlist to return later, it starts over a 1 of 2, 2 of 2...
I have posted another thread of how I have my playlists defined, so perhaps that would help you. I do recall that there were some conditions that used to cause problems if used in a smart playlist.

Smart Playlists no longer working on my 4G iPod

I have a 20GB 4G Mono iPod that is running the latest firmware version (3.1.1) and I have several Smart Playlists I use frequently with it.
Before I upgraded to iTunes 7 last week these playlists would dynamically update on the iPod itself without the need for me to synchronize with iTunes (this was also a bug introduced in firmware 3.1 and corrected in 3.1.1). Now the "smart" playlists on the iPod act just like static playlists: if I play a song that is supposed to be removed from the playlist once the song finishes, it doesn't until I sync with iTunes.
Is anybody else experiencing this issue?
I have tried restoring my iPod just in case.

Well, 7.0.1 doesn't fix this for me, but downgrading to 6.0.5 did. I followed the first four steps here:
http://macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=6335&cid=112858
Then, while keeping the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file in ~/Music/iTunes, I made a new "iTunes Library" file (instructions at the bottom of this link):
http://www.mani.de/en/software/macosx/ivolume/faq.html
Then installed 6.0.5 and dragged the xml file onto the new program file to import. The new groupings (movies, podcasts, etc.) turn into playlists at the bottom, but can be easily deleted.
This will allow downgrade while keeping play count, ratings, etc. intact; I did lose artwork for all the songs for which I had downloaded the art from iTunes store, and iTunes is recopying those songs to the iPod, but I'd rather have the playlists update on the iPod than have the artwork.
iBook G4 1 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Smart Playlists no longer updated with iOS 4.3 on iPhone 4

I've run into an issue with the latest iOS 4.3 update: my smart playlists are no longer dynamically being updated on my iPhone 4.
All of my main playlists are smart: they exclude songs that I've played in the past week. Earlier today when I'd play a song and it went to the next one, it'd immediately remove the song from the playlist (so I was always on track 1 of XXX). With 4.3, this is no longer happening and the smart playlist only dynamically updates when I sync my phone with my computer. This is annoying because it means that I can end up hearing the same song again if I switch playlists.
Anyone else run into this? Any fixes? I tried rebooting my phone to no avail.

My results differ from yours.
With iOS 4.0x, 4.1 and 4.2x my smart playlists with live updating were broken. It would start with track 1 of 5, then 2 of 4, then 3 of 3, 4 of 2, then would generally crash the iPod app. If I left the playlist and re-entered it would have removed the entries already played, but I would find that some of the entries that should have played had actually been skipped in m playlist.
With iOS 4.3, my playlists are properly working for me again. Now they play 1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, ... If I return to the playlist while it is playing, I see that the entries that have already played are removed, and if I leave the playlist to return later, it starts over a 1 of 2, 2 of 2...
I have posted another thread of how I have my playlists defined, so perhaps that would help you. I do recall that there were some conditions that used to cause problems if used in a smart playlist.

Smart Playlist JUST for 'Free Songs of the Week?'

I would like to create a Smart playlist comprising exclusively the 'Free Songs of the Week' from the iTunes Store. So when I get the weekly 'Free Song,' it goes right into that list. But I need some sort of 'unique identifier' that allows this to happen, and I can't seem to find one. I go under all the 'View Options' and nothing seems to 'tag' these songs as unique, so I can't set up a Smart Playlist that includes just those songs.
Is there a way to do this?

The iTunes Store doesn't tag the free tracks any differently from any other track that I can see, so I can think of no automatic way to put just the free tracks into a playlist. You could, though, put "free" or something similar in the Comments section when you download one of the free items, and then have a Smart Playlist that looked for "free" in the Comments. That's the only way I can think of to accomplish what you want. That wouldn't be any easier than just dragging the free tracks to a normal playlist, but would allow you to have future Smart Playlists that process the free tracks.
Hope this helps.

I have smart playlists combined in a folder that I use to make playlists to fit on devices. Lately the folder isn't updating with the playlists inside it, so the folder shows songs that aren't in any of its playlists. Can anyone help?

I'm using the latest iTunes on Windows 8. Since upgrading to iTunes 12 my old system of smart playlists within folders have not worked properly. I used to have a folder containing three folders with smart playlists in them, but I had to abandon this and copy all the smart playlists into one folder, as the nested structure didn't seem to update anymore. This worked for a couple of months (even though it was less convenient and didn't exactly accomplish what I had been able to do on iTunes 11 and earlier).
More recently, however, I've found that the folder in the simplified structure also doesn't work properly. The smart playlists are set up to remove songs after they were played, but now the folder seems to retain some songs even after they've disappeared from the playlist that included them. It seems to be building up 'ghosts' of songs that were played and were then supposed to disappear as per the smart playlist setup. I tried copying all the playlists out of the folder, but ended up with the folder 'properties' showing that it contained a number of songs, even when it was empty.
I also noticed that I'm unable to reference the folder in the conditions of any new playlists I set up - I get the error message that the folder relies on smart playlists that cannot be updated. In response to this I reviewed all the playlists, but saw no errors.
Anybody else have this problem?

It may be best to recreate the folder and the smart playlists from scratch.
tt2

Ipod Touch Apps NOT syncing (Bonus: manually managing smart playlist)

Can Someone Please Explain this to me simply?
1) I have a 32GB ipod Touch and it will NOT let me do anything with my apps from my itunes. I click on my ipod touch under devices on itunes. Then I click on apps next to summary and the entire section is grayed out in a way that I can not sync my apps nor arrange them how I would like to. Why is this happening and how can I fix it?
PLEASE help me with question 1.) FIRST
2)This question is just a little more general but I have been searching and not able to find the answer, but I like to manually manage my music from my itunes to my ipod touch in a way that my entire itunes library does not load on my ipod touch. However, I have a few SMART playlist in which I click and drag the entire SMART playlist to my ipod touch. However, I have a SMART playlist set up for recently downloaded/purchased songs in my itunes, yet every time I drag that SMART playlist to my itunes it adds ALL of the same songs including the new ones instead of simply only adding the new ones and skipping the songs already on the device...how would i fix this?

I seem to have found a way to fix this. For every app on the touch, I deleted the copy from Applications in iTunes and resynced to have iTunes get a new copy from the device. This seems to have corrected the problem.

Smart Playlist Not Syncing Correctly

I downloaded Version 8 yesterday. Today I synced my iPod to iTunes. I had a smart playlist called "Newer Stuff" which consisted of my 60 most recently added songs, with automatic updating.
When I hooked up and synced the iPod, I noticed that about 40 of my old songs were being synced. I assumed it was because I had changed the album artwork or something recently or because last month I'd had the iTunes "crash" and had to recreate my library from a backup.
After syncing, my smart playlist had the correct 60 most recent songs on iTunes (my computer). However, my iPod had the aforesaid 40 'old' songs in the playlist in lieu of some of my new music.
I tried re-syncing several times, and even deleting the smart playlist and creating a new one with the same rules. And each time the smart playlist on the computer/iTunes is correct, but the one on the iPod is still listing the 40 old songs as part of the playlist.
Any suggestions? To be honest, iTunes has been bugging the heck out of me all summer, what with the crash and now this.

I tried to make more sense of this. I took note of the songs on the playlist on my Touch. Then I waited until after midnight and looked at the playlist on my iMac. Songs that were added after midnight (see pic in my first post) were songs that were on the Touch that shouldn't have been there.
I'd thought that the playlist on my iMac picked the songs and once I plugged in my Touch, it just transferred them over. However, it seems to me the Touch is picking songs as well, which may have something to do with me changing the "last played" criteria often. It seems the two playlists (the one on the iMac and the one on the Touch) aren't always in sync.
I know that you can make playlists on the Touch, but I've never tried, so I don't know how detailed you can make them. Am I on the right track here? What's the solution?

Smart playlists for file location?

I have half my music on my powerbook hd, and half on an external drive. I want to create a smart playlist of all the music on the internal drive, and one of all the music on the external.
Is this possible? Perhaps I need something else though... I want to avoid the situation of click on a song, and getting the 'not found' prompt, and only see music that is available to me at the time.
Thanks!

Chris CA wrote:
Both correctly include 2 1/2 star songs when one of their criteria is "greater than 2 stars".
Are you sure the songs are not getting includes as part of other criteria in the list?
Very. Each playlist has just two criteria (both of which must match): "Rating is greater than 2" and "Playlist is ___". In fact, I've used those two lists (which between them include essentially all of my rated music) to create a "Rated 2.5" list (which correctly contains all of my 2.5 rated songs and nothing else).
the Smart Playlist option "Rating 'is greater than'" is not mathematically correct, since it does not treat 3 1/2 as greater than 3
It is mathematically correct. You mean it does not work in adding 3 1/2 rating to the playlist.
Yes, that's what I meant, so perhaps I should rephrase: the actual behavior seen after choosing "is greater than" is not the behavior described by the mathematical inequality "A is greater than B" (since some songs with ratings that are greater than B are not included).
On a technical note, the behavior seems to be in "iTunes Library", not in "iTunes Music Library.xml"...
iTunes does not use the iTunes library.xml file. It is created by iTunes only for other applications to access the library.
Ah, thank you! That's good to know. Interestingly, when I look inside the XML file to compare one of my two "especially smart" playlists to what ought to be a perfect duplicate of it (but isn't) there /is/ one small difference in the "Smart Criteria" section (in the next-to-last line of data there, the better-behaving list has a "Bk" in a place where the worse-behaving one has an "A7"). Is there any way for an ordinary user to edit the internals of the actual iTunes Library database?
Have you looked over at dougscripts.com for something on this?
Yup. There are two or three scripts there for setting half-star ratings, but skimming through all search results for 'half-star' or '"smart playlist"' didn't turn up anything relevant.

Smart playlist sort order issue

I'm having an issue sorting a smart playlist. I've searched through other questions on here but can't find the identical issue.
I've created a smart playlist that contains the contents of two other smart playlists. I've tried to sort this list by 'name', by clicking on the arrow in the column heading, but the list still leaves the two playlists separately, ie. it sorts each original playlist separately, and then puts one after the other in the play order.
I have other smart playlists constucted in the same way, and have no issues with them, and I can't see what the difference is with this one!
I'm using 11.0.4.4, on a Windows 7 PC.

I am also having the same problem. Running the newest iTunes and iPhone software my smart playlists are not working correctly. My "Recently Added" is correct in iTunes, and if I look at the playlist on my iPhone info in iTunes it is correct there, but the actual playlist on my iPhone is populated entirely with audiobook files. I have tried deleting and recreating the playlist which gives the same results. I have also specified that items within the playlist should be music files only and still get the same results.
I have a playlist that's Top 50 Most Played that's also not behaving properly (ie correct in iTunes but not on my iPhone).
Any suggestions?

After updating all softwere I am unable to update smart playlist?

I have updated both my itunes and ipod touch to the newest versions. After doing this i am unable to sync my smart playlist and one application that I played for will not work.
ex: my recently played playlist will not update,the songs are added but they go on a random order somewhere were in the middle of the playlist. The beginning of the playlist has not changed regardless of what songs i play or how many times i have updated the ipod, it seems as if it is locked.
What i have tried doing: restarting computer, restarting ipod, restoring ipod, creating new smart playlist, when ipod is attached clicking music in the ipods tab menu and selected only the smart playlist.
Please help!

For getting podcasts to sync correctly:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10237036#10237036
For getting smart playlists arranged by album or artist to sync correctly:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10234242#10234242
And for smart playlists that are top 25 type playlists (although I'm not sure why there's a difference, this stuff is all really messed up) try turning off live updating in your smart playlist settings. And post here if that prevents your playlist from updating when play counts change, I don't use that list and I'm curious.
And also complain here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback

Smart Playlist problems after iTunes upgrade 10.6.1.7

Hi, I updated my version of iTunes to 10.6.1.7 and since then my smart playlists are not syncing to my iPhone properly. The selection of songs is scrambled, and so I have a variety of my top rated, audiobooks and other random songs. I have tried removing and resyncing the smart playlists to my iphone, but this has the same outcome. Also, the sync doesn't complete all stages so I end up with roughly half of my music from my smart playlist on my iPhone.
Not sure if this is an iTunes problem or iPhone problem, but it definitely only started after I upgraded iTunes.
Any others out there with the same issue or any suggestions?

Yepper.. got the same issue.. it is not sync'ing my Itunes play lists to my I pod touch.

ITunes smart playlists MISSING!!

This is so annoying!! My recetly added playlist (and also all other smart playlists) disappeared on both my iPad 2 and iPhone 4S all of a sudden when I synchronized them.
I have tried unchecking the live update button of the playlist and then synchronizing my iPhone 4S again but it doesn't work. Could someone please please tell me how to fix it?
B.T.W. This seems a long lasting headache for many iTunes users, I hope Apple won't be so self-sufficient to lose insights about our concerns.

Doublechecking. Do you still get the issue if you update to iTunes 10.6.3.25?
From the notes for the release:
Addresses a problem where iTunes may become unresponsive when syncing an iPad (1st generation) that contains an iBooks textbook
Fixes a problem where photos synced to a device may appear in an unexpected order
Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly delete playlists created on a device
Fixes issues where iTunes may unexpectedly delete apps on a device
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Cascaded AND/OR-expressions in smart playlists

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for