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iPod Dealing with iTunes libraries bigger than your iPod

D

dav1d

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2005
6
0
My iTunes library of music has finally got past the capacity of my 20GB iPod, and with me using podcasts now, can regularly increase in size by quite a bit. I'm used to being able to plug my iPod and any new music I've got will be put on it automatically without me having to do anything, but now it complains about there not being enough space.

At the moment, I've gone through my library and unticked tracks I don't like so much and told iTunes to only updated checked songs on the iPod. However, there's no way of telling how many songs I'll need to uncheck if I get a new podcast or album that I want on my iPod, which still makes it quite awkward.

How does everyone else deal with this? What is the best way of doing it?
 
The way to go is to change to updating your iPod manually. You can then add (or remove) whatever songs you want to

From Apple's site:-

Set up your iPod so that you can manually add and delete songs.
With your iPod connected to your computer, select your iPod in the iTunes Source list.
Click the iPod Options button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window.
In the iPod preferences window, select the “Manually manage songs and playlists” option and then click OK.
Drag the individual songs or playlists from the iTunes window to the iPod icon in the Source list. The iPod icon will flash red and the iTunes window will show Updating iPod while it is updating.
When you are done, click the Eject button next to the iPod in the iTunes source list.
 
As mad jew says Smart Playlists are your friend. You can combine them with manually populated playlists for stuff you specifically want to listen on that particular 'fill' of the iPod.
 
The last two posters did tell you a good solution, but did not explain what you need to do to achieve this, which, in case you do not know, I will tell you.

When your iPod is plugged in, open the preferences and select only update selected playlists.

Once you have done so, create a playlist that has all the songs you would like on your iPod (I find the best way to do this is to create a playlist with all of your songs, and then deleting the songs you do not want on your iPod from that playlist).

Using this in combination with a Recently Added Smart playlist, you can keep up to date with what you want on your iPod, and what you do not want.

One more thing, if you choose to create a playlist of all your songs, some computers don't like it when you go select all and then try to drag every song onto a playlist, so I suggest doing this:

Select All of your songs, then go to the File Menu, and choose "New Playlists from Selection"

hope that helped.
 
Sesshi said:
Would you mind pointing me to a 400gb iPod? I don't seem to be able to spot one.
Click to expand...
Here you go! :)
 

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Sharewaredemon said:
I'm enjoying this thread hi-jack immensely.
Click to expand...
Oh, fine. Point it out and spoil the fun why don't you? :)

[on topic]
When I had this problem, my solution was just to create a smartlist where the playcount was > 0. Once I had too many songs for that, then I changed it to playcount is > 1. Couple that with a most recently added playlist and I had all the music I wanted to listen to on there.
 
tobefirst said:
Oh, fine. Point it out and spoil the fun why don't you? :)

[on topic]
When I had this problem, my solution was just to create a smartlist where the playcount was > 0. Once I had too many songs for that, then I changed it to playcount is > 1. Couple that with a most recently added playlist and I had all the music I wanted to listen to on there.
Click to expand...

I've done it with ratings. Of course, that requires rating your songs. But I have smart playlists for all songs with 4-5 stars, and 3 stars. By dropping the 1-2 star songs, I've got enough room.
 
dav1d said:
My iTunes library of music has finally got past the capacity of my 20GB iPod, and with me using podcasts now, can regularly increase in size by quite a bit. I'm used to being able to plug my iPod and any new music I've got will be put on it automatically without me having to do anything, but now it complains about there not being enough space.
Click to expand...

Politely stepping around the thread jacking... ;)

I actually also do it your way. I just unchecked a lot more songs... so that I had 1.5 gigs free or so... That way I don' really have to think about it often / at all... In my case, though, there are broad categories that I don't really feel I need on my iPod, though I want them on my computer. Like I don't miss not having opera on my iPod, because I really only like to listen to it under better audio conditions, and don't like using headphones. So that removed some 800 megs or something in one fell swoop....

I've played around with the playlists, too, though, and that's also fine.
 
Yeah...smart playlists sound good, but picking the songs by hand is another way, but much more difficult.
 
I like doing a mix of smart playlists.

Highest rated songs (50% of available GB)
Least recently played songs (25% of available GB)
Most recently added songs (25% of available GB)

That gives me a good mix of music that I love, music I haven't heard in a while and new music.
 
Create a smart playlist, and set the criteria to exclude tracks played within, say, the last two months, or however far back you need to go to get under 20Mb. This method also has the benefit of keeping your playlist fresh.
 
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