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Re-sort iTunes playlist using Automator?

E

EssentialParado

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 17, 2005
1,162
48
Is it possible to re-sort the manual arrangement of an iTunes playlist? I know you can drag songs into an order but I want to perfectly resort them into reverse order. And there's about 500 items which would take forever one at a time.
 
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Reverse order of what? What was the original order? Date added? Track name? Artist Name? Last Played? For all of those, just click on the top of the column to flip them over.
 
EssentialParado said:
Is it possible to re-sort the manual arrangement of an iTunes playlist? I know you can drag songs into an order but I want to perfectly resort them into reverse order. And there's about 500 items which would take forever one at a time.
Click to expand...

Yep, it should be easy. They're currently arranged by the first column with the triangle pointing up, right? So just click on it again so the triangle points down, and voila, you have them sorted in the opposite order. :)
 
Daffodil said:
Yep, it should be easy. They're currently arranged by the first column with the triangle pointing up, right? So just click on it again so the triangle points down, and voila, you have them sorted in the opposite order. :)
Click to expand...

Yep, you've got the idea. Now here's my problem.. it's my Purchased playlist. If I do what you say then any new purchases end up at the very bottom of the playlist. Meaning I need to manually move them every single time to get them back at the top. If I could somehow reverse the playlist but keep that arrow pointing downwards, then it'll be fine.

Is it possible using automator maybe?
 
So, if I understand correctly, you want your playlist ordered top to bottom 1,2,3,4,5, but you want iTunes to play in the order 5,4,3,2,1 bottom to top?

I'm pretty sure that iTunes only plays top to bottom unless it's on Shuffle.
 
Thanks for the reply David. If I use a simple example it might help explain what I'm trying to say…

Currently I have a playlist of let's say 4 songs like this:

v Song Title

1 Sex me baby
2 Blah Blah (remix)
3 Crudeness
4 Britney

(I mean, not literally those song titles... of course)
…But I'd like to change the order those songs are in:

v Song Title

1 Britney
2 Crudeness
3 Blah Blah (remix)
4 Sex me baby

I can do it by dragging and dropping the songs into a new order, but it takes a long time, and my actual Purchased playlist is 500+ songs large. So I'd like to automate the process but I'm unsure if automator can do that.
 
What about just adding a column for Date Added, then sort by that. That way, you can get your most recent purchases to the top, which presumably is what you want? No need for automator... :)
 
Daffodil said:
What about just adding a column for Date Added, then sort by that. That way, you can get your most recent purchases to the top, which presumably is what you want? No need for automator... :)
Click to expand...

Well iTunes doesn't let you re-arrange in that view. And sometimes I've download an album and another random single at the same time, and then the random single ends up in the middle of this album in the Purchased playlist because iTunes downloaded it mid-way through. So then I begun to use the arrows, because iTunes still adds a new purchase at the top but if they happen to be wrong I can re-order them manually if I need to.

The problem is my purchased playlist got reset a while back and somehow ended up in reverse order of purchases and I need to return them back into the correct order (somehow).
 
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Well, this isn't a very elegant solution, but how about making a second playlist, say Purchased-reverse or something like that. Then have the second one sort manually, reverse the order on your regular purchased playlist and drag them over. Then switch the order back on the regular one, so new songs are added at the bottom. Presumably all your new purchases will be in the correct order so you update your Purchased-reverse playlist by dragging stuff over when you buy it.

So essentially, as a one-time thing, reverse the order on your purchased playlist so the adds are correct, then update the second playlist according to need. (Hopefully that made sense :p)

Whether it's a convenient solution or not depends on how often you buy new music, I guess, but it's the best I can come up with... Good luck :)
 
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