Smart Playlists - limiting by My Rating of songs

OK - this is probably a really simple question but it's really frustrating me.
I'm trying to create a smart playlist by limiting songs that have a certain rating. Sounds simple enough.
However, in the options box when you select My Rating as the criteria, I can't type anything in the box next to it to say what rating you want to limit it by - if you see what I mean. Any suggestions.

You don't type in the box; you click in the box to enable how many stars you want. Give that a try and see if that works for you.

Similar Messages

Smart Playlists limits me to 267 songs?

Hi,
Total newb here...I have 1000 or so songs on my iPod and I am trying to create a smart playlist called "80's Music" that will add any song from 1980 to 1989. problem is that it will only put a limit of 267 songs into this playlist. How do I get it to put all of them in there? There are at least 800 80's songs on the iPod...I know how to tell it that I want the years specified.
Any help much appreciated!
Steve

Try this:
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o168/VixenofVenus/smartplaylist.jpg
If you've already tried that and its still only putting 267 songs in the list, then you might want to check some songs that AREN'T in the list that SHOULD be to see if they have the Year tag set correctly.
Personally, I know I don't have the Year tag set in all my music. In the past I have forgotten to set it and I just haven't gone through it all to change all the albums so they have the Year tags set ...

Smart Playlist: Limitation or broken iPod?

I have been struggling mightily trying to get my Smart Playlists to sync properly between iTunes and my iPod. One particular playlist that has been a major problem is one with two filters, the first filter is for purchases, and the second filter is for songs played less than 10 times. In iTunes, this Smart Playlist works just as I would expect, with all of the songs filtered out that have 10 or more plays. However, on my iPod, the second filter is completely ignored, and only purchased songs will show up.
Oddly, when I sync iTune with my iPod, for the flash of second, the filters work, but then, it reverts back to only honoring the first of the two filters.
So, the question is: is Plays not a filter that will work on an iPod, and this is expected, or my iPod not working properly with regard to Smart Playlists?
Thanks,
Ryan B
Update: The Playlist works on iPod when Live Updating is unselected. Does not work correctly when Live Updating is selected.

hmm, I thought I was only seeing a porblem with my ipod shuffle on my Mac - starting with itunes 8.1 and hte 3rd gen shuffle, I have to sync my 1st en shuffle twice to even get stuff onto it, sometimes. And of course since it has no clock, everything syncs back with the time I am syncing it, not the time it was actually played.
camoracer may be onto something. I just played a song from a smart playlist on my 5th gen clickwheel ipod, and it didn't sync back OK.
edit - correction, I played it from an On-The-Go playlist. The On-The-Go playlists got synced back, but not the track playcount.
I DO use a complicated playlists on my 2nd gen nano and it syncs the playcounts OK.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the iPod model?
Message was edited by: Katrina S.

Smart playlists - genre and rating, two questions

I can't figure out a way to create a smart playlist that includes Rock and Alternative songs but only Rock and Alternative songs rated 4 or 5 stars. I can easily create a playlist that includes one genre and is limited to a star rating and I know I can create the list I want by first limiting my playlist to 4 or 5 stars and then subtracting genres but my library includes 51 Genres!
Actually, I might be willing to create a playlist by subtracting 49 genres if I could then duplicate the list so I can create the second playlist I want; 4 and 5 star World and Latino songs. So, question #2 is, is there any way to duplicate a playlist?
TIA,
Peter

Oh, you got it!!! I'd never noticed "Playlist" as a parameter in the smart playlists! Suddenly all kinds of possibilities open up! It did work the way you suggested but I decided to take a different tack. I created a 4-5 star "rock" playlist and a 4-5 star "alternative" playlist and then created a third smart playlist that includes the first two playlists! Now I can just continue creating smart playlists that include only songs I rate 4-5 stars in all of my 51 genres and create composite playlists to my heart's content! OK, I wouldn't do that. Once I get over 25 genres, it'd be easier to go back to the subtraction method. ; )
Thanks for your help Diane! You're brilliant!
Peter
Message was edited by: petemay

Suggestion for Album Rating in Smart Playlist - let me choose

First just want to say I love the Album Rating feature, especially the ability to make a "Smart Playlist" that includes all my top rated albums.
However, I have a suggestion to make this feature better. Right now, it lets you choose albums that have integer ratings such as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 stars BUT due to rounding this really means 0.5-1.49, 1.5-2.49, 2.5-3.49, 3.5-4.49, and 4.5-5.0 stars. Apple should let you specify any number of stars, including decimal points. In other words, if I want all albums that are 3.8 stars and up, let me do that.
This may not seem important, but the way I sync my ipod with my playlists relies on these smart playlists (and not on rating every single song in my library) because my ipod is too small in hard drive size for my library.
Any one else out there agree?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

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.

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

6.0.2 BUG: setting rating in smart playlists

I created a smart playlist and wanted to match all songs that were not one star. When I click on the section with the stars, I can select any number (and the number of stars follow the mouse as I drag it - as expected). However, when I release the mouse, the number of stars changes. I can only select 0, 2, 4, or 5 stars -- not 1 or 3. The cursor location -> number of stars mapping seems wrong because clicking on the first star yields 2 stars, but clicking on the second star yields 4 stars.
Selecting stars works fine in the library view.
Powerboox 17" 1.3GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) I'm using the built-in LCD screen

Bug has been confirmed by more users.
See this topics:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=309553&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=309584&tstart=0
M

Is there a way to combine two Smart Playlists without dragging each individual song from one list to the other?

Is ther a way to Combine two Smart Playlists without dragging and dropping each song into the other Smart Playlist?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Debra

With the timeline selected, go to File/Export/Movie and export each as a DV-AVI video.
You can then combine those AVIs into a new project with virtually no loss of quality.

Smart Playlist: I want to make a smart playlist that plays songs by artists included in other playlists. How?

Here's an example: I have a smart playlist that only plays songs that have been played 2 or more times (Playlist A). I want to make another smart playlist (B) that plays songs by the artists included on playlist A but that are songs not included on playlist A because they have not been played two times yet.
I could do this by making a smart playlist that says to play:
Any songs
not included on Playlist A
by artists included on Playlist A
But for the life of me, I can not figure out how to do this simple thing. My options for Playlist are only "is" or "is not".
I hope that the reason for this is clear - I want to listen to other tracks by artists who have written songs I know I like.
Thanks for looking!

But I have to say, I don't know why that the "is/is not included in" field would not be an option. They oughtta add it!
The problem is that the Smart Playlist rules, although they look complicated, are really oriented to analyzing individual tracks. So "is this track in Playlist A" is easy to do, but "is this track by an Artist for which there is at least one track in playlist A," is currently undoable. However, you can make suggestions to Apple by using the iTunes Feedback page:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html
Thanks you solved my question.
Enjoy the music!

Smart Playlist Problems (Since Ver 5)

I have come across a problem, which I believe started when I installed Version 5.
I have many SMART playlists set up that are really for my iPod usage. They are set to pick certain tracks that have not been heard in xxx amount of days, and usually set to a certain number of songs, or a particular amount of time.
The ones I use most often:
SLEEP MUSIC - a playlist of random songs not played in the last 5 days limited to 90 minutes. I listen to this when I go to bed.
WORK MUSIC - a playlist of 100 random songs not played in the last 5 days. I play this through my inMotion dock at work.
Previously, all the smart playlists worked fine. When the songs were played, the playlist would update on the iPod and the next time I would enter that playlist on the iPod, the tracks would be different.
It still works this way as long as I don't connect my iPod to my PC and sync with iTunes. If I do, it always resets the iPod playlists to the songs that appear in the iTunes library. I rarely use these playlists on the PC, so they almost always stay the same.
It seems like in previous versions, iPod would update the iTunes library and the smart playlists would also be updated in iTunes, so that the iPod versions of the playlists would continue to be random. But now, if the playlist is different on the iPod, it will not transfer over to iTunes. Instead, the iTunes playlist is copied back over to my iPod, and I keep getting the same playlists over and over.
This is a major annoyance, as I usually sync my iPod every day since I am constantly updating my library.
I've also noticed that when I synch my iPod, it is copying over songs that are already there, and it always seems to be copying songs I recently played in the iTunes library.
I know that if the tag info is changed, or I add album art to a track, it will be copied over to the iPod again, but I am not making any changes to these tracks, just playing them in iTunes. I don't know if this is related to the smart playlist problem or not.
I thought about unchecking LIVE UPDATE on those playlists that cause a problem, but that doesn't work, as now I'd ALWAYS have the same playlist.
So, my next thought is to use the "Only update selected playlists" option in the preferences to exclude those playlists that have this problem. If I do this, will new music I add still be copied over to my iPod?
Has anyone else encountered these problems?
FYI - I have not updated to the latest iPod update because of smart playlist problems people were having. I have version 1.1 on my 60GB photo. Would updating perhaps fix this problem?
My bottom-line thought on this is that iTunes updates the iPod, but the iPod no longer updates the iTunes library as it previously did. My reasons for thinking this are 1) The playlist problems I am having as stated above, and 2) I notice when I change the ratings on the iPod, they are not changed in iTunes. I am going to do a test and change the rating on a track on the iPod, then I will synch my iPod to see if the track is updated in iTunes, or the file is copied back to the iPod with the old rating.

Reagrding tracks being copied over again, I've seen another post in iPod Lounge where that person indicated the same thing. He stated that the play count was not being updated between the iPod and iTunes, but that the tracks were being copied over again. This sounds like a good explanation of this problem.
I have now noticed many of the tracks which I know I have played in the past show a "0" play count. Are the play counts kept in the iTunes library files (iTunes.xml and iTunes.itl)?
I always save the library files, so that when I reinstall iTunes I can just copy these 2 files back to their proper locations and I have my entire library intact - playlists and all. My music library is on a different drive.
Anyway, I KNOW I have played these tracks on the iPod, and yet they show unplayed on iTunes. This is probably another symptom of the re-copying tracks problem.

Smart Playlists not updating

Yesterday I added two new songs to my library. One of them should have gone into Smart Playlist "A," one of them into Smart Playlist "B," and both of them into Smart Playlist "C."
For reasons that I am unable to understand (after reviewing the conditions of all three playlists), both songs went into Smart Playlist "C," but neither "A" nor "B" was updated with new music.
I was running iTunes for Mac 5.0.1, and in desperation I decided to check Software Update for a new version of iTunes. I took version 6, but it didn't help. (I guess it was silly of me to think that a new major version would fix this problem; I wasn't thinking about the new video iPod!)
Any thoughts? Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

Yep, the Live Updating checkbox is selected for all three of these playlists.
Here's more detail, which I didn't include for fear of boring everyone to death:
Song 1 is The Proclaimers, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," no genre (I removed it thinking it could be interfering with the Smart Playlist), date 1988, my rating 5 stars.
Song 2 is The Dandy Warhols, "Bohemian Like You," genre also removed, date 2000, my rating 5 stars.
Playlist A is "1980s Music" with the following conditions:
- Year is in the range 1980 to 1989.
- My Rating is greater than 3 stars.
- Genre is not "Books & Spoken."
- Genre is not "Classical."
Playlist B is "2000s Music" with the same conditions as playlist A, except:
- Year is in the range 2000 to 2009.
Playlist C is "My Top Rated" with the following conditions:
- My Rating is greater than 4 stars.
- Genre is not "Classical."
In all three playlists, the top checkbox is set to Match all of the following rules, and neither the "Limit to xx songs..." nor the "Match only checked songs" checkbox is selected.
Song 1 fits the conditions for playlists A and C, while song 2 fits the conditions for playlists B and C. But only playlist C has been updated with these songs.
Ideas? I'm grateful for any help.
Best,
Tim

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.

Smart playlist not working

My smart playlists aren't doing jack squat for updating. The live-update checkbox is checked. I tried unchecking it, then going back and checking it again. No luck. I have lots of new songs on my computer that simply are not showing up. And the music isn't random at all. It's not changing. Very frustrating.
I have a smart playlist limiting size (so it fits on my ipod), checked random, and live-updating. Nothing else. But it won't update.
I'd just recreate it every time I want to sync (which I did once hoping to fix the problem), but it's used in a bunch of other playlists too, so that's a huge pain to recreate all those too.
Anyone know how to troubleshoot this? I am lost, and a bit mad at the software (trying hard not to dislike apple right now).

HappyPants wrote:
Why can't my criteria simply be limit size to 14800MB ...
So I guess checking random just selects random songs, it's not actually a criteria. So really that Should be a criteria....Random. Just that.
I Just want a certain number/size of random songs.
You have to have at least one criteria, which can be something as simple as "Bitrate Is Greater Than 1 kbps" which all your music would meet, then set it to select 14800MB selected at random. iTunes will grab 14800MB worth of songs, selected at random, but the contents won't change unless you include criteria that forces songs out of the playlist to be replaced. Otherwise, the playlist contents will never change. Make sense?
HappyPants wrote:
In my case I really don't want to use the criteria as you suggest, "last played is not in the last 'x' days" because sometimes I like to hear the same songs over and over again ... I just can't fit all my music on my ipod and wanted the nano for it's size. So the best solution for me is to just have it randomize my songs a bit every time I sync.
Then how is iTunes supposed to differentiate between the songs you like to hear over and over and other songs that it needs to select "at random"?
HappyPants wrote:
After some thought, I chose to do: last skipped is not in the last 1 day.
That should change quite frequently before putting a song back into the playlist, and it should keep the songs that I like listening to over and over.
Now you're thinking
I still would like there to just be some way of just limiting the size and having it random though.
You can do this (see my first suggestion in this post). However, what you're asking is for iTunes to somehow know what songs you want to keep on your iPod vs. the songs it is supposed to pick at random.
I would recommend you make a regular playlist (not smart) that holds the songs that you always want on your iPod, then a smart playlist that randomly selects from the rest of your music. In the smart playlist, include the criteria "playlist is not (other playlist name)" so that you don't double up on the same songs.
If you want to manage an iPod that is smaller than your library, I would recommend you spend some time reading an excellent paper on how to do this:
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1154607&da=y

Auto album ratings breaks smart playlists - hollow stars

I've seen this discussed a few times but the given answers don't seem to work, maybe it has changed again in the new release of itunes (I'm on 9.1.1.12 on XP). I have a smart playlist of all the songs which have not been rated. Once I'd rated 19/29 of them they all disappeared as itunes had calculated an album rating (which is fine) but then applied that rating to all the unrated songs. In some views the songs are listed as unrated but the key thing is that the smart playlist thinks they're rated when they're not. Previous postings say to unrate the album but whenever I do that it just automatically rerates again. How can I create a playlist of songs that I have not yet rated?

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
I've just had a look at this under V9.1.1.11 current Windows build (is yours 64-bit perhaps?) and, as far as I can tell, rating tracks (filled stars) will produce an automatic rating (hollow stars) for an album. Likewise rating albums will produce an automatic rating for each of their tracks. If you only rate some of the tracks of an album without explicitly setting an album rating then the remaining tracks should stay unrated. I can set ratings for all but one track of the album and the last will stay happily unrated. What rules are you using to determine what should be in your unrated playlist?
tt2

Smart Playlists - limiting by My Rating of songs

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