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Any way to sync a random selection to your iPhone from within a playlist?

D

Daveecee

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 12, 2008
123
0
FL
Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have a ton of music that won't fit onto your iPod or iPhone, you can allow it to sync a random selection to the device, right?

Well, can I make my iPhone sync a random selection of songs from one playlist rather than from my entire library?
 
just make a new playlist of the songs that you want to sync, go to the music tab, sync selected "playlists" and pick the one you just created.. thats what I do.
 
Create a playlist 'A' that contains all the items you might want on your iPhone

Create a playlist 'B' that contains items that are in A, selected at random, and limited to (say) 4 GB

Sync playlist 'B' with your iPhone.

The only problem with this is that the list won't continually re-randomise. To re-randomise you need to select all items in 'B' and delete - iTunes will re-populate.

I do this - but I also have the rule in 'B' that I don't want to include songs I've recently listened to or skipped. That way, the list randomises itself as you listen to stuff.
 
firestarter said:
I do this - but I also have the rule in 'B' that I don't want to include songs I've recently listened to or skipped. That way, the list randomises itself as you listen to stuff.
Click to expand...

I can has detailed explanation?

EDIT: Nevermind, found out exactly how to do what you were talking about. Tweaked it a little to fit my needs, but thanks for the ideas!
 
Daveecee said:
I can has detailed explanation?
Click to expand...

Welcome to my world of overcomplicated smart playlists!

Let's say you have a playlist with all the albums / tunes you might potentially want to listen to (as before, this is 'A')

Now create a second playlist. In my case, it's called 'MusicSeed' as it's the list of all the music I have. The conditions I've got set are all of:
Genre is not audiobooks
Genre is not video
Last played is not in the last 4 days (I just listened to it, so let's have something else)
Last skipped is not in the last 14 days (I skipped it, so I'm not in the mood to hear this)
Live updating


Now I can create smart playlist 'B'. Conditions are all of:
Playlist is A
Playlist is MusicSeed
Limit to 6GB
Live updating

So when I've listened to something and last played is set to today, the track disappears from MusicSeed, and therefore disappears from B. iTunes keeps the size of B at 6GB, so it puts another track in its place.
 
Okay, so I got my playlist made and synced, but I get a little notification exclamation point next to the playlist name in iTunes (under my iPhone, not the original playlist). Clicking it reveals this:

"The smart playlist depends on one or more playlists which cannot be found."

I'm assuming because the source playlist is not on the iPhone. So far, I can't see anything wrong going on here other than the fact that this message is present. The music is still getting synced to my iPhone, although I have yet to see if it will be live updating. Time will tell.
 
firestarter said:
Yes, that's OK.

You can't have the source playlist on the Phone, 'cos it's too big. All my playlists have exclamations.
Click to expand...

And when you sync, they still transfer enough information that iTunes knows the songs have been played, removes them from the playlist, and syncs the new one with the iPhone?
 
Daveecee said:
And when you sync, they still transfer enough information that iTunes knows the songs have been played, removes them from the playlist, and syncs the new one with the iPhone?
Click to expand...

Yes. iTunes updates itself with playcount, rating, last played, last skipped etc. if any of these things has changed since you last docked your iPod.
 
this is all great but is there any way to have the random selection choose complete albums rather than just tunes?
 
huntaaar said:
this is all great but is there any way to have the random selection choose complete albums rather than just tunes?
Click to expand...

I should say as well im using Itunes 9.2.1 so no smart shuffle feature as some online tips suggest..

Arrrgghh!:confused:
 
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