Smart Playlist - Rules

Is there any documentation anywhere about what fields you can use in smart playlists for iTunes Match so that the playlist will sync to the cloud and then onto my devices? Smart Playlist syncing just doesn't seem to work for me
I know you can not reference another Smart Playlist only because on my two playlists that do sync okay if I add a playlist clause it warns me that the playlist will be deleted from iTunes Match.

From what I can tell so far is that the only thing that doesn't work is having a smart playlist in the playlist is clause.
What I am doing now to force the syncing of playlists is to create my playlist, quit itunes, start itunes. Then my playlists all magically appear on my phone!
Does anyone else have any tips for having playlists syncing through Match?

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BPM Smart Playlist Rules not Syncing

I noticed the following behavior. I created 3 smart playlists, all 3 containing many rules including some to match specific BPM (Beats Per Minute) rules. Only the Smart Playlist names appear on my iPhone 5s, none of the 3 lists is populated.
However, when I remove the rules referring to BPM and leave the other rules unchanged, all 3 playlists appear populated on my iPhone.
Has this issue with BPM been reported previously?
Bernard
iTunes 11.2.2.3 on Dell with Windows 7 Professional SP1 and iPhone 5s 64GB
"All the Way from South Africa..."

im in the same situation.. i recently switched over to the 3.1.3 version and what a mistake that was. i wish we could go back because half the things dont work anymore. like the smart playlists... it says i have them correct on both itunes and my ipod but i check it ON my ipod and its random songs...

Smart Playlist Creation Question - Rule Parameters Issue

I want to have newly imported songs go automatically into a playlist (Recently Added), from which I can move them into a playlist of their own. I then want to be able to CLEAR the Recently Added playlist so that I can then import a SECOND group of songs which will automatically go into the Recently Added playlist, where they will be the ONLY songs there because the first group of songs will have been CLEARED.
I inadvertantly deleted my Recently Added playlist, so that is not available to me - I have to, in effect, create my own Recently Added playlist.
The problem I am having has to do with the Smart Playlist Rule Parameters needed to accomplish what I am trying to do. I have been able to set up a smart playlist that receives newly imported songs automatically. However, I seem to be unable to CLEAR the songs from the smart playlist to make way for a SECOND group of newly imported songs.
I thought I could get the job done by simply deleting the entire Smart Playlist that contained the first group of songs, and then creating a new Smart Playlist to receive the second group. You can do that - but the problem is that the minimum time you are allowed to assign is one day. This means that when the second group of songs goes into the second smart playlist, it will also "grab up" and include the FIRST group of songs, assuming that the groups of songs are all being imported on the same day. I don't want to limit myself to importing only one group of songs per 24-hour period.
(When I import groups of songs, I import them in very, very large groups, which is why I want to be able to deal with them in individual groups, rather than having to sort through the larger, general Library of tunes in order to put them into their own playlists.)
It seems to me the answer lies in being able to set up a Rules Parameter that shortens the time involved from one day to something like 15 minutes or so. I don't know how to do that, even assuming that it can be done.
Or, perhaps, someone might have another suggestion that would help me accomplish my goal here.
Any and all thoughts will be much appreciated!

ed2345 wrote:
You can use playlist membership as a criterion in a Smart Playlist.
So if the list you are moving them to is "SecondPlaylist" (or whatever you wish to call it) then add a rule to your custom-tailored Recently Added that states "Playlist" "is not" "SecondPlaylist."
Not sure I am getting this. You understand that I am IMPORTING new files into iTunes - I am not moving already imported files into a playlist.
I can create a smart playlist with a Rule of: Playlist/is not/recently added (where "recently added" is the playlist I previously used to set aside the last group of songs imported into the music library). But when I click on OK to set it up, then I have to name it. And when I give it a name ("current load," for example) and confirm the name, suddenly, "current load" is filled with the last group of imported files. Don't ask me why - but that's what happened.
Any other thoughts? Anyone?

How do I create a smart playlist that automatically gets updated when I add songs to other specific playlists?

Basically I have a number of playlists containing specific types of songs, and also have an "All Songs" playlist that contains everything from these playlists. It would be really helpful if the songs I add to the smaller playlists could also be added to an "All Songs" smart playlist automatically. How would I do this? I tried to make a smart playlist by selecting "Playlist" "is" "[names of each playlist]." But nothing happened. Is there something more I'm supposed to do? I'm not really familiar with how smart playlists work, so I may be doing something wrong.
Thank you!

I tried to make a smart playlist by selecting "Playlist" "is" "[names of each playlist]." But nothing happened.
Check up at the top of your smart playlist rule for "All Songs". Is it currently saying "Match all of the following rules"?
If so, change the all to any, as per the following screenshot:

ITunes 6.0.2 glitch - unable to specify 3 star rating in smart playlists

Hi all,
there seems to be an interface glitch in iTunes 6.0.2 which prevents me from setting up a smart playlist rule containing a rating of 3 stars. Whenever i try to adjust the slider to * it jumps back to ***.
Can anybody confirm this?
regards,
Dirk
iMac G4/800 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Yes, I can confirm it. Here's another thread, unfortunately without a solution yet: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=309553&tstart=90.

Can't make an unrated smart playlist in itunes

i have 1/2 star ratings enabled on my imac. when i make a smart playlist with "ratings is 0" i get a playlist of all 1/2 star rated songs and none rated 0. i have itunes 11.
i tried it on my macbook (itunes 10.7) and it works fine. but i don't have 1/2 stars enabled on that.

I didn't think that smart playlists would work with half star ratings. However, I discovered that they do recognise the half star, but don't display it in the rule. It all depends on where you click on the star-scale. For example, if you wanted a smart playlist to show all songs you have rated four and a half stars, you click on the left side of the fifth star dot. In this example, it would show a four star rating in the rule, but show four and a half star rated songs in the actual playlist.
So, in your case, Edit Smart Playlist rule screen, click and drag from a star then to the left of the scale. It should recognise that you want all songs rated with nothing, rather than songs rated with half a star. Just make sure your click ends after being dragged past the actual scale. Confusing, I know.
Here is a screenshot of a smart playlist with the same idea of displaying all unrated songs that I created less than fifteen minutes ago.

Help with creating a specifik smart playlist

Hi everybody.
I'd like to create a smart-playlist that only contains *albums with a total playtime of 25 minutes or less*.
I've tried a few things but haven't succeded.
I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could help me!

That cannot be done with iTunes Smart playlist logic.
The Smart playlist rules operate on one song at a time. They cannot operate on multiple songs at a time. So something like the playtime of an album, which requires adding times across the multiple tracks of the album, does not work.
If you wish, you can manually tag tracks in those albums, using the Grouping or Comments field, and use that as a criterion in the Smart playlist.

Updating smart playlists

I have set up a smart playlist, which says not to play songs played in the last 7 days, and limits the playlist to 700 songs so that the playlist will always fit on my 4gb nano.
When I've plugged it in over the last couple of days, it says "cannot update not enough free space".
How do I get it to remove songs that don't conform to the smart playlist rules, so that the songs on the ipod rotate regularly?

Which is fine, but is there no way of automating the process?
Then all I should have to do is plug it in after each days listening, and get continually rotating songs, and not listen to the same songs each day.
If not, fair enough, just seems silly.

Bug in iTunes 6.0.2 - Smart Playlist - music rating criteria

There's a bug in the smart playlist music rating criteria. It's impossible to select stars. if you choose one, iTunes selects two. If you want to reduce stars, you will go mad.
iTunes 6.0.2 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

This bug is known and discussed in this Forum.
Apple has published an article about it:
iTunes 6.0.2: Wrong number of rating stars when configuring Smart Playlist rule
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Share Smart Playlists in iTunes?

Where do smart playlist rules live? I'd like to copy a smart playlist to another user on the same computer without having to re-type the entire list (there are over 60 items). We both use the same media folder which is on an external hard drive that we both can access.
I can export the smart playlist from my account as a regular (static) playlist and import it into the other user account, but I have to do this every time I add something to my account.
I'd really just like the same smart playlist on both accounts without having to re-type the whole thing.

Same problem here! I synced my iPod Touch with my other laptop sing iTunes 9.0.2 and everything is fine. If I sync using 9.0.3, no joy! I'd say we need 9.0.4 to fix this!

Ipad and itunes smart playlists

Hello
I made a smart playlist which includes all podcasts with a certain word in the title like "News". I also have another smart playlist which includes all items from the first playlist, with an added criterion of never having been played before, and this is called "News 0". I cannot combine both because "News" has a number of "or'd" conditions, each selecting one keyword, and I want to add just one "and" condition which is the playcount=0, however the Smart Playlist rules UI doesnt allow this.
I sync all my unplayed podcasts to my iPad, and within the music section, sync all my playlists as well.
When I select the first playlist on my ipad, I get what I expect, which is all my unplayed podcasts from the News playlist, because only those have been syncd to the iPad, and it is smart enough to not show me the ones that were on my main machine's view but not sync'd. This is nice.
However I would expect the same result when I select the second playlist "News 0". However, this has no content in it.
I can only imagine this is because a smart playlist that depends on another smart playlist is not working properly when pushed to the remote device?
Any ideas?

1. Right click the playlist > "Edit Smart Playlist"
2. Check "live updating" (or make sure it is already ticked"
3. Click "+" to add a rule.
4. Add the following rule: "Playlist" "is" "Music"
Only works if the playlist is music, obviously if it's an audiobook/podcast playlists edit the rule accordingly.
Hope this helps

After 3 years, tried live updating of smart playlist again. Still broken.

I mean that lists like "Music I haven't listend to recently" do not remove songs on the fly when I listen songs. Last time some special rules were a problem, like "album rating", or "skipped" or "is/not podcast". It worked if I avoided those rules. I did not research the details this time. Although all my rules are really old, so they should have been fixed by now. (Old, but a complex set of ten smart playlists, all live updating and the "main" list built from the others.)
Here is my speculation from 2009:
Generally any RECENT iTunes smart playlist RULE TYPES that Apple has introduced in iTunes, but failed to update to iOS Music Player seem to be the problem. The iOS device can not understand a new iTunes rule unless somebody hard codes it to a new iOS version which is then updated to your iPod. And the live update is disabled, if iOS does not recognize a rule that iTunes has.
Why, oh, why don't they just define a scripting language to implement the smart lists, with primitives that can read any meta-data fields on a media file, and compare strings, numbers and dates? Then a new rule type would just mean a different script synced to iPhone, not re-programming the Music Player?
Or what gives, tell me?

FYI, I've found that Live Updating can SORT OF work. It seems if you only have two rules, live upating works (IE, I have one that is a Rating must be 3-5*'s and last played cannot be within the last 8 weeks). Once the song is played it disapears off the playlist. BUT, as soon as I try to add a third rule, it doesn't work anymore! This is unfortunate because two rules really limits the ability of the playlist...
Cheers,

How can I create a smart playlist of least played complete albums?

Hi,
How can I create a smart playlist of least played complete albums? (of a specific genre, say jazz)
What I would like to do is to have a playlist that will always automatically pull the least played albums of a specific genre (ideally, but not necessarily, with a random album play within that playlist) Hope you are getting the concept!
Thank you for any idea!
Daniel
p.s. there have been solutions for earlier versions of iTunes, none working with iTunes 10 apparently

As you say, you can't access the Gapless property in a smart playlist rule.
The obvious way that comes to mind would be to create another playlist with stuff to exclude from your final list and put the gapless tracks and anything else that won't filter out easily into it.
Yes you say but I have oodles of gapless tracks and I don't want to gather them up by hand.
OK, so you'll need a script. Here is one I've just created for the purpose: GaplessToPlaylist
tt2

Update Smart Playlist Manually (v11) - options

As far as I can tell, the only way to update a Smart Playlist manually (one that is not set for "Live Updating") is to click on the playlist, edit it, and then click OK (no need to change anything in the edit dialog). Has anyone found another, quicker way to do this?
The only reason that I'm not choosing "Live Updating" in this scenario is that I want a mix that contains all unrated music so that I can rate songs as I listen to them. I haven't found a set of Smart Playlist rules that Live Updates that doesn't cause the song to instantly disappear from the playlist (and immediately stop playing) when I rate it. I'd rather listen to the full song through and have its last-played/# of plays information updated.

I can't even manually update them this way....

IOS 7 and Smart Playlist Handling

In iOS 7, smart playlist handling isn't working as "smartly" as before. Here are two examples dealing with song ratings...
If you try to sync a smart playlist containing only songs assigned ZERO-STARS, the songs will transfer over to the iPhone, but the playlist will show up empty.
If you sync a (live-updating) smart playlist containing songs assigned FIVE-STARS, the playlist will appear as expected, but it won't "live update" as it did in iOS 6. For example, if you change a song's rating to FOUR-STARS, it won't move out of the FIVE-STAR smart playlist until you sync with your Mac.
If you guys know of any tricks to make this work again, let me know! :-)

Yes, it appears iOS 7 itunes match isn't so smart and handling iTunes Smart Playlists. It apparently doesn't like qualifiers like "Last Skipped" "Last Played", "Time". When I remove these parameters from my smart playlists the playlist shows populated on my iPhone.
Interestingly, you can add these parameters back in and they music stays on your iPhone. The only problem is it doesn't follow the smart playlist rules. For example, I can add back in "Last Skipped - not in the last - 7 days". When I play the playlist in iTunes (on my iMac) and skip a song it shows the # of songs in the playlist decreases. However, the playlist on my iPhone does not recognize the update. In fact, I notice a interesting symptom.
The playlist on the phone has a "Download all (# of songs)" at the top of the playlist. When you add back in the offending parameters this option goes away and the only way to tell the number of songs is to scroll to the bottom of the page and it shows the number of songs but no option to download all. This is clearly a programatic issue--hopefully Apple will fix this soon.

Smart Playlist - Rules

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