Folders vs Playlists

Can anyone provide any info on the difference between folders and playlists and if setting up such an organization would be an efficient way to hear a grouping of songs by different artists in an order I want to listen?
I basically want to listen to songs by the school year I associate them with.
I have already set up playlists by year in the iTunes store and filled them with songs from that year. Can I group these multiple playlists into a common folders?
Specifically, could I set up one folder named Highschool and in that folder have four separate playlists (i.e. 9th,10th,11th, & 12th) another folder named College and in that folder have four separate playlists (i.e. freshman through senior); each playlist having songs from that year?
Thanks for any help.
i-Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4)

Create Smart playlists and have them select only songs from that year.
Create another "master" playlist to select each of these playlist.
iTunes and the iPod interface do not use folders (at least in the same way Windows does).
A folder contains the actual items.
A playlist is simply a list of song titles.
For example if I create two folders, I can put the same file (a duplicate) in each one. Each song will tak eup ~ 4 MB.
A playlist simply is a list of songs, which are contained in the library. The song is not in the libray twice. You can put a song in any number of playlists and it will not change the size of the stuff stored on the iPod. Maybe by a few bytes.

Similar Messages

Importing folders as playlists in itunes

I have a large volume of folders on my hard disk containing .aiff files. I want to import them so the folders become playlists with the same .aiff files inside them. That cannot be done in itunes 10.7 -- the folders are obliterated and playlists must be recreated manually and the .aiff files placed in them. This is fine and dandy for a few playlists, but gets old real quickly when there are hundreds of folders. I'm currently using iFolderer as a workaround, but it too has its limits. (for some reason, each folder has to be added individually -- you can't batch a bunch of them and transfer them, like in Finder or Windows Explorer.)
Does anyone know if the situation is any better for v. 11? I haven't upgraded. Or if there is a better way to do what I seek in v. 10.7? Thanks. -- David

thanks Brandon... maybe i was not clear.... I am talking about PLAYLIST FOLDERS in the main iTunes window... under >PLAYLISTS, the folders appear right after the iTunes DJ and automatically generated playlists like Recently Added, Recently Played, Top 25, etc.
Actually what happens when you double click the folder, what you get in the new window in iTunes is the individual song tracks, not a list of playlists what was added to the folder, and dragging a playlist to the folder does nothng...

Sub Folders in Playlist

How do I create? Odd question and it must be easy but I'm struggling with this. So I've created a playlist and I want to create other folders within the playlist, help please?

You can create *Playlist Folders* and put a mix of *Playlist Folders* and Playlists inside them. However you can't put a *Playlist Folder* inside a Playlist.
tt2

Folders in Playlist

I'm trying to switch to iTunes from Audion (SoundJam MP prior to that) and one thing that's driving me very crazy is not being able to have folders in the playlist. I don't want to see any individual tracks, just a listing of my CDs that plays when I double click on an album. How can I configure iTunes like that?
Or, if it's not possible, has anyone found a better replacement for SoundJam MP than Audion? It's inferior but the best I've been able to find. Pretty sad considering SoundJam MP has been out of publication for 8 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundJam_MP
Kris

SoundJam actually became iTunes.
In addition to the previous response, you have a couple of other options. In list view, make sure that "Browser" is activated. This will give you, if you so choose, three panes across the top which will allow you to drill down. If you select the artist, the next pane will give you a list of the albums. If you then select an album, you will see the songs in that album. This requires no work on your part.
You can make folders in playlists, though I don't recommend doing it extensively as making a playlist for each album is a)a lot of work, b) redundant if your tracks are tagged properly and you use an appropriate view in iTunes and c)large numbers of playlist may affect performance.
However, if you want to go that route, you can. You can make folders (File menu>New Folder). Then, you can put additional folders in the first one. I don't know how many you can nest. Note: you can only put playlists in folders, not individual tracks so you would have to make a folder for each album.
Best of luck.

Folders for playlists/photos don't show in iPod

My playlists and photos have been carefully sorted into various folders to make navigating them easier.
For some reason, my iPod doesn't display:
- any playlist folders, or
- folders beneath the 1st level of hierarchy for photos (aka "deep hierarchies").
I'm guessing I'm not the only one to experience this.
Does anyone know why Apple chose to do this, and, more importantly, we can do to circumvent it? Browsing thousands of photos without a folder structure quickly becomes extremely tedious...
5G Windows XP Pro iTunes 7.0.2.16

Less than a zillion. More than 42.
It's useful in my line of work for me to be able to create multiple playlists that fall in different groups; there are often 12-20 playlists per group. Being able to maintain this structure would make browsing them on the iPod so much easier. Given Apple's trend to make things easier, why not provide a checkbox for those of us who would like this? Or, better yet, a checkbox and an automated alert when you reach a certain # of playlists: "FYI, you can enable folder structure in your iPod by doing this.."
Same thing for photos: the folders are nested. It makes finding them much easier... example: Trips/2006/Home, Work/Projects/Abstract. You get the idea.
Now I wait for the off-chance that my feature request would be heeded. In the meantime, if anyone has a workaround...

Creating folders in playlists for burning to CD

Hi
Is it possible to create folders within a playlist for burning cd's with about 8 albums on in mp3 format so that it is easier to direct access a particular album on the disc rather than start at track 1 & keep skiping until you reach say the 5th album which will be about track 60 & so on & so on, I have no problems burning the files to disc but like ive explained it just shows as about 160 tracks but no individual folders for each album
many thanks
Kev the rev @ York

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate your candor and your quick response.
R,
John

Import Folders as Playlist

I use a Mac, I want to know how to import each of my different category folders of Music as a separate playlist?

Rokcstaa wrote:
I use a Mac, I want to know how to import each of my different category folders of Music as a separate playlist?
File > New > Playlist. Give it a name, and open it. Now go to Finder and drag the folder into that open iTunes window.

Making folders in playlist and having those folders transfer to ipod

I listen to alot of live shows and for that I have made folders for each bands live shows to make it easier to scroll through my ipod. When I sync my ipod with my itunes the ipod doesn't show up with the folders like I have it in itunes. With not being able to have those folders on my ipod it takes much longer to scroll through the ipod. Especially since when my ipod is plugged into my headunit in my car I can only scroll through my music on the interface one cd at a time. Does anyone know how to get the folders to show up on the ipod and thus being able to show up that what on the interface of my headunit in my car. Thanks alot for any help.
-Kevin

Apple don't as a rule pre-announce what features will be available in software updates or much if anything about new models. The support for folders could be an option, it's a case of wait and see. In the meantime you can leave your feedback and a feature request at this link: Apple Product Feedback

How can I restore an iTunes playlist from iPod Classic to iTunes INCLUDING folders and playlists?

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jpkirchner wrote:
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I don't know what's up with the translation window thing appearing. Anyway...
Your i-device was not designed for unique storage of your media. It is not a backup device and media transfer was planned with you maintaining a master copy of your media on a computer which is itself properly backed up against loss. To use a device with a new computer you transfer the content from the old computer (or its backup) directly to the new computer, not the device to the new computer. Syncing is one way, computer to device, updating the device content to the content on the computer, not updating or restoring content on a computer. The exception is iTunes Store purchases which can be transferred to a computer.
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only purchases from iTunes Store
For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you will have to use third party commercial software. See this document by turingtest2: Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991

Cannot add playlists to folders in iphone 5 / itunes for mac

Does anyone know why one cannot add playlists to folders in iphone 5. When I drag a playlist to a folder on my "Devices" on my iMac in itunes 10 it does not show up on my phone after it syncs. I should note that I currently have 3 folders with playlists which show up on my iphone but I believe these were generated when I first Automatically Synced Music before I switched to Manually Manage Music

Also can this be done for photos?

All playlist folders contain the whole library

Hi everybody,
I recently updated iTunes to the newest version and now ran into some problems.
First off, everything was gone from the libraryl, no songs, no playlists, nothing. I then tried to recover this by using this guide http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451.
This kind of worked, but now I have a new problem.
Most of my songs seem to be back in the library. However, I also had playlist folders containing playlists. If I click on those folders, it doesn't only show the content in the playlists, but all the content of the whole library. This means in every folder, about 450 interprets are shown, even ones that I did never put into those playlists.
I tried to delet stuff from those folders, however, that does not work. It just doesn't delete it, but gives no error message whatsoever. I can hit delete as many times as I want, still the songs remain in the folders.
The weirdest thing is, that if I go through the playlists, the songs are in none of them. Example: let's say the folder is called A, and contains the playlists B and C. If I click on A, it shows me my whole library. If I click on B and C, each of the lists only show the songs that should be in there, but not the rest of the library.
I have no idea why this happens, nor have I found any solution to this, and it is very annoying, since this basically messed up my whole organization, and I can't even reorganize it, because it won't let me delete anything.
I also want to add that I can very well delete items from the library, just not from the folders.

See Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash.
tt2

ITunes (11 I think) in smart playlists and folders won't apply the "Last Played" search criteria in real time. Please fix!!!

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

ALL of my playlists, folders and half of the music files are gone

I've reinstalled my Mac OS, before that i moved my iTunes folder to external hard drive. Also exported the iTunes Music Library.xml file, because i've read that it keeps all the data connected with playlist and folders.
I had more than 200 gb of music, all sorted by myself by artist and genres folders (so you can imagine how much time did it take)
Now I have installed Lion , i tried to copy all files from iTunes folder which is based on an external hard drive, but none of folders or playlists appeared and only 130 gb of music files has been copied to the application.
Please help, that was really important for me, i'm just crushed. And sorry for bad english btw.

You say you moved the iTunes folder but you also specifically mention copying the .xml file which makes me wonder if you really did copy the whole of the iTunes folder and all of its contents. If you had, there would have been no need to mention copying the .xml file because it is inside the iTunes folder and would be copied along with everything else. What I am getting at is, you either didn't copy everything you need, or you haven't restored it correctly. Here's the correct way if you let iTunes manage your music:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the whole iTunes folder and all its subfolders and files intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
Putting iTunes back onto the computer is the reverse. Just copy the iTunes folder to you Home > Music folder and start iTunes (it will automatically look in this default location unless you hold down the option key while starting).
By the way, while the .xml file also contains the library information, it isn't the file that is actually used by iTunes. The really critical file in iTunes is the Library.itl file which is also in the iTunes folder.

Playlist folders aren't showing. Match issue.

Hi all,
I use iTunes Match which has usually worked pretty well. I recently started sorting my playlists into folders, since I have about 30 playlists and would like to keep them somewhat organized.
However I can't see any of my playlists on my iPad.
When I open the Music app and tap into the Playlists tab, I initially didn't see any of my playlists at all, just the "genius playlists" which I don't want and "blank" playlists bearing the names of some, but not all, of my folders. This is what I see now:
The only playlists that are actually showing up are the two that aren't in folders. And they synced instantly; once I realized it was the folders that were missing, I tried pulling them out of the folders in the iTunes on my Mac, and as soon as I did that the individual playlists showed up in the list. So it's clear that the problem is specific to playlist folders.
Playlist folders work just fine on my iPhone. Beautifully, in fact.
This is just incredibly frustrating.

Turns out they were showing up, just all the way at the bottom of my list of bookmarks. I just couldn't see them. If you go to "Bookmarks"->"Organize Bookmarks" and then play around in there with highlighting on "Bookmarks Menu" you should be able to figure it out. Otherwise you just have to move them up to the top individually. Hope that helps! ~Kate

ITunes Gone Haywire: Playlists, Folders, Settings and more

Hello all. Man...I really need some sage advice in a bad way. I've been trying my best to conquer this major iTunes problem of mine, but ultimately, I have just not been able to find a working solution to fix it. Even my efforts at pinpointing the source of my troubles have been in vain. I've finally become exasperated enough that I decided I be better off trying my luck here. Any help would be very much appreciated.
THE PROBLEM(S): A couple months ago I was working on some music projects within iTunes, when something seemed to go awry, because it promptly started acting strangely, not like it normally did, and that's when I began to experience the problems. It had always run smoothly for me up until then, but it's been giving me major trouble ever since. Here's some of what's been going on:
Playlists gone haywire: My entire stable of folders and playlists has seemingly gone mad, doing all sorts of unfortunate and crazy things. I routinely get new waves of unwanted playlists and folders appearing in my library--some are exact duplicates of playlists and folders that already existed in my library, while others bear the same or similar titles, but are deformed in one way or another. Moreover, I'll often get a bunch of very old playlists reappear--ones that I had long since deleted from my library. Other times I will find that a whole bunch of the lists and folders have suddenly disappeared again, or sometimes their location will change. The worst of all is when, as happened a few times, I just completed a bunch of changes and modifications to the library's folders and playlists, or I was working on a music project in some lists, and then suddenly it all disappears into thin air a short time later (after a reboot of iTunes, for instance).
B) iTunes Library Files (itl, xml, genius, extras, and sentry): They refuse to nest in the main iTunes folder location they are supposed to reside in. Instead they insist on taking up residence in my Previous iTunes Libraries folder. I tried a few strategies I had come across here in the pages of the community, but none has worked to date.
C) Unstable Preference Settings: At least a few times I've logged on to iTunes to find that my usual settings and preferences have completely changed, causing problems. Sometimes it will change my iTunes Media folder location in Edit>Preferences>Advanced to another location (like to my Previous iTunes Libraries folder location), thus creating a new hierarchy of media folders therein. Also, my settings in View keep changing back and forth, my sources in Edit>Preferences>General had changed on me one time, and more.
MY CURRENT SETUP
-My PC: Dell Inc. Inspiron 580, Microsoft Windows 7 x64 Home Premium Edition, Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
-iTunes 11.1.3.8
Library Size: 335 GB, 24,734 files, 13,056 folders
I'm an iTunes Match subscriber.
Current iTunes Media folder location via Edit>Preferences>Advanced tab: C:/Users/Dowgiert/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. Both "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" are currently checked.
Current folder path
Titles iTunes has chosen for my library files it uses: iTunes Library 2013-10-25 Extras, iTunes Library 2013-10-25 Genius, iTunes Library 2013-10-25 (.itl), iTunes Library 2013-10-25 (.xml), sentinel *See screen shot below.
Current location that iTunes uses for my library files (database .itl file, genius file, etc.) is: C:/Users/Dowgiert/Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries. The folder paths for these same files are: C:/Users/Dowgiert/My Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries.
-I also have an iPad 2, and a couple other iPods (classic and Nano). None of these currently has the iTunes library in the desired state (thus ruling out importing from them).
WHAT I'VE DONE SO FAR
-Backed up my library with SyncToy 2.1 (x64)
-I downloaded iTunes Folder Watch, however it doesn't seem to work until I fix the location of my .xml file.
-I've tried countless other fixes, changes to my software and PC, etc., but I won't list them all here now. Feel free to ask me more.
WHAT I'VE NOTICED
-It seems like these unpleasant library changes are often more likely (but not always) to coincide with one of the following: an iTunes update; an iTunes Match update; a Genius update; an iTunes shutdown, followed by a later restart of the program.
Again, thank you so much for any help. I'm really stuck. I have all sorts of other information at the ready, so feel free to ask if you have questions.
Forest

Hello again Mr. TuringTest2! Continued thanks for your help sir! I've long suspected that iTunes Match was partly responsible for my troubles, by the way. Let me update you on what's going on.
New Steps I've Taken:
-After your last response, I did the readings (thanks!), and then began by turning off my iTunes Match. From reading the post you provided on resetting iTunes Match, I got the impression that my order of operations should go as follows (please correct me if I'm wrong):
1st) Disable iTunes Match. [Completed]
2nd) Clean up my library [Started, but not completed*]
3rd) Try the Shift+ start iTunes Match technique to try and successfully clear away any harmful entries that might be saved in my Apple iCloud/iMatch database. [Incomplete]
4th) Restart iTunes and turn iTunes Match back on. Determine if the problems continue. [Incomplete]
*UPDATE: STEP 2 INTERRUPTED
I began clearing, moving, and modifying the playlists and folders that were the unwanted end-products of my recent troubles. I was making good progress cleaning up: Went from 258 playlists (regular) down to 200, and from 67 folders and subfolders down to 27. I hadn't yet deleted any of my 56 smart playlists, but did place them all into one folder (to organize them for later cutting).
Then came the hiccup. I didn't know clicking the button seen below on my account page would automatically turn iTunes Match back on, but it did:
Match ran it's usual 3-step process, and in just a few moments, undid the almost all of the aforementioned progress I had made. Of course, as it seems want to do, it added back a whole bunch of trash playlists and folders.
I ran a couple of your scripts to assess the damage. They showed that just by this accidental restart of iTunes Match alone, my library ballooned from 200 reg playlists/56 smart lists/27 folders, all the way up to new totals of 264/64/47!
When I returned to the problem today, first thing I did was turn iTunes Match off again. This resulted in dropping the totals to 235/63/47. I found that odd, so I did some more testing--turning Match on and off, each time recording the results. Here's all the recorded results in total numbers of regular playlists, smart playlists, and folder counts after each change:
Off:     200/56/27
On:     264/64/47
Off:     235/63/47
On:     285/64/48
Off:     256/63/48
On:     306/64/49
Off:     277/63/49
I ran your PlaylistToFile script each time after I turned iTunes Match off (it wouldn't run when I had Match on for some reason) and made copies of the results. I wanted to be able to see the specific changes being made each time, and to try and determine which specific playlists and folders were acting up. I you think taking a look at these results would be useful, I've copied them into a shared google document you can access at the following link:
-https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ESzfCpcO14krXp5sTQdMke0CpFDF--gbwVxrGaNmbgw/ edit?usp=sharing
I also noticed that iTunes started creating more backups of my library's database files within the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. Here's an image of the new ones:
Also, it appears iTunes created new .itl and .xml files in my main iTunes folder (see below). Or at least that's what the "Date Created" info column says. What up with that? Also, I still have the Trash folder here that you told me to set up, and a couple new .tmp files have appeared. Here's how it looks:
What do you think I should do tt2? If I had completed the four steps (outlined at top) without accidentally turning on Match before I all four were completed, would that have fixed the problem? Should I do something different, or in a different order? I'm all ears. Thank you so much for all your help!
Eternally grateful,
Forest

Folders vs Playlists

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