Manage Checked iTems in iTunes

Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:51 am

I’ve got an iPod that can’t store all my music, but I still automatically update checked items in my iTunes library (it’s a syncing option). I’ve found a workaround for one of my wishes that Apple probably won’t be adding any time soon. My desire is to sort tracks by check mark box (whether selected or unselected). There is no way to do this natively, but we can configure a smart playlist.

Make a smart playlist by holding SHIFT, and clicking on the button on the bottom left. It looks like a gear or cog when SHIFT is held down, and it’s a plus sign (+) otherwise. You should see a popup to set rules and options for the play list.

checkeditems.png

Edit the settings to match the picture shown. Uncheck “Match following rule.” Check the following three check-boxes, and edit the second check box so your entire library is considered. There are several ways to catch all of your items, but this works if your library is less than 900GB.

Now you’ve got a playlist of all of your checked items only (I called it “Checked on iPod”). Anytime you uncheck an item, it will instantly leave that playlist; and anytime you check an unchecked item, it’ll hop into this playlist.

You can have a playlist of all unchecked items by making another smart playlist. This time all we is do match the following criteria (leave this option ticked), don’t limit items, don’t match checked items, but do live update. Make one rule that the… Playlist / is not / playlist of checked items (name of the playlist we just made).

unchecked.png

The end is result is two playlists that show what is and isn’t on an iPod if the settings sync only checked items to your iPod.

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Comments regarding “ Manage Checked iTems in iTunes ”

  1. David F says:
    July 14th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    I have been trying to figure out how to do this forever.
    You, sir, are my hero.

  2. mark says:
    October 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    this has been bugging me for ages… you’re a champion. it’s gonna make itunes so much easier for me now.

  3. Eileen says:
    May 24th, 2008 at 5:43 am

    YOU　ROCK!!!!!!

  4. Andrew says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 12:06 am

    Thanks for the tip. It really comes in handy. I was just trying to figure this out. Saved me a bunch of time.

  5. Rohit says:
    June 21st, 2008 at 3:52 am

    Thanks a tonne

  6. Delbin says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

    Thanks a ton for posting this. I wouldn’t have thought of anything like a double negative playlist. If you’re like me and uncheck songs you want to delete, you can change the artist in the unchecked playlist to ‘aaa’ and then find them in your library.

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. iHope: iTunes Gripes and Wishlist- liquid parallax's Blog
    Pingback : June 8, 2007 at 9:25 pm

    [...] by dead tracks (!) with the exclamation point -sort by check mark box (selected or unselected) Fix: Playlist solution -the new multiple libraries option in iTunes 7 should have an option for global change, say if I [...]
  2. Fixed and Smart Playlist Ideas- liquid parallax's Blog
    Pingback : July 21, 2007 at 2:10 am

    [...] A while back, I made some iTunes Javascripts for Windows, some that generate playlists for you. And if you want to have a playlist so you can only view checked / unchecked items, I wrote how to do so. [...]
  3. Uncheck All Items in iTunes Library- liquid parallax's Blog
    Pingback : July 25, 2007 at 12:02 am

    [...] with this question and I figured I’d share it with everyone. They found me from a search from organizing checked items for [...]

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