Smarter Playlists for iTunes

Published on 2004-10-14 by Mark VandeWettering

Here is a little tip that I just figured out. I was trying to use a smart playlist to create a special playlist which contained all of my most favorite daily podcast shows that have arrived in the last three days. The normal smart playlist interface allows you to specify a list of conditions, but they are all connected with either an AND or an OR. For instance, what I wanted to do is create a playlist for all shows added in the last three days, AND is one of ‘Evil Genius Chronicles’ OR ‘Linux Link Tech Show’ OR ‘IT Conversations’.

The trick is to used nested playlists. Create one smart playlist which contains all the shows that you find interesting. Then create a second playlist which specifies that ALL the conditions must be met, and add a rule which is “Playlist is My-Favorites” and another rule which is “DateAdded is in the last three days”. Voila!

I didn’t invent this idea, but I did find it useful, and hope you do too.