(iTunes) Having music only in playlist not library

[Haqq]

Is there a way I can make a playlist of songs that are only in the playlist and cant be found in the music library?

In other words an independent playlist with songs not from the library.

 

[Tilpots]

Not that I'm aware of...

Also not sure of the reasons to do this and it's none of my business, but some more info may help us figure out a workaround.

 

[mchalebk]

I'm pretty sure that any song in an iTunes playlist will also be in the library. That's what the library is, all the stuff that iTunes can access. A playlist is a subset of the library.

As Tilpots suggested, if you let us know what you're trying to actually accomplish and why, we might be able to make some useful suggestions.

 

[Haqq]

Well I have a bunch of religious lectures and I don't want to add them in my library cause I usually play my music on shuffle including anyone that uses my computer. I first searched around if you can add a new library to your iTunes like under MUSIC but that's not possible so I was just wondering if this route is possible

 

[dXTC]

Here's a possible solution:
Highlight all your lectures, then Get Info and change the Media Kind to Podcast. This will move your lectures to the Podcast section, so that when you shuffle your music, the lectures are left out.

 

[Tilpots]

OK. I can think of two fairly easy ways to accomplish this. I would recommend the first way, but you know your situation best.


1. Add them into iTunes and uncheck them. This should prevent them from playing during a shuffle or syncing with an iPod or iPhone. You should also give them a custom Genre designation under Get Info->Info->Genres->Custom. You could call it something like "Lectures". You can then easily create a Smart Playlist if your special files are categorized this way.

2. The second method is to create a brand new iTunes Library for the lectures, but this takes a bit to set up and though it's not that hard to deal with, it's still somewhat of a PITA.

 

[mchalebk]

I think the key thing here is that the Library is not really intended to be used for playback, that's what playlists are for; the Library is "everything". My recommendation would be to create a playlist that contains all the music you want to be available to play and use that for listening to music.

 

[jdechko]

Here's a possible solution:
Highlight all your lectures, then Get Info and change the Media Kind to Podcast. This will move your lectures to the Podcast section, so that when you shuffle your music, the lectures are left out.

I think this is the best solution to the problem. It also has the added benefit of automatically bookmarking where you left off. You can go back and resume playback from where you ended last time.

Or just start using playlists for playback, like mchalebk suggested.

 

[fremachuca]

I think the key thing here is that the Library is not really intended to be used for playback, that's what playlists are for; the Library is "everything". My recommendation would be to create a playlist that contains all the music you want to be available to play and use that for listening to music.

my thoughts exactly.

 

[Mal]

An additional option is to select the lectures, Get Info on them (Cmd-I), and under the Options tab, set "Skip when shuffling" to Yes.

That way they can appear in the Library, still be checked (so still sync to an iPod that has "Sync only checked music and movies" enabled), but won't come up when playing through the library.

jW

 

[Haqq]

Ohhhhh wow! Thank you so much, truly appreciated!

From the methods shown I like the podcast idea best, the whole playback when I stop is really helpful.