paintedbird

Q: Transferring iTunes Playlist to USB While Maintaining Track Order

Hi there!

 

I've been searching around the Apple Support discussions and have not been able to find an answer to my question, so here I am. I'm trying to put a few of my playlists on a portable usb, but once I drag them into there, they lose the song order and are instead ordered by the original track number of the song on its album. I tried re-numbering the tracks to mimic the order in my playlist, but that didn't work.

 

Also, I noticed that iTunes has an Export Playlist option, but it looks like it just exports maybe the song information, not the actual music files. Do I need to add this to each of the playlists I transfer in order for them to played on another computer? And I'm not sure what the difference is between the four exporting options: Unicode Text, XML, M3U, and M3U8. If I need to add this to my playlist folders on my USB, which would be best?

 

Once I figure this out, should the playlist be able to be played on any other MAC in iTunes?

 

Thank you to anyone who might try to help! I can usually figure these things out on my own by searching the web, but I'm not able to this time.

MacBook

Posted on Sep 13, 2013 7:15 AM

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Q: Transferring iTunes Playlist to USB While Maintaining Track Order

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  • by muzyk4lyfe,Helpful

    muzyk4lyfe muzyk4lyfe Feb 13, 2014 8:37 AM in response to DCox10
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 13, 2014 8:37 AM in response to DCox10

    go to the playlist. click on one song and hit ctrl + a to select them all. than click on on just one song and drag it into the folder you want it in. its just click and drag. it wont let you copy and paste from itunes. and the music doesnt get screwed up at all.

  • by mike_psy,

    mike_psy mike_psy Mar 9, 2014 6:35 PM in response to muzyk4lyfe
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mar 9, 2014 6:35 PM in response to muzyk4lyfe

    instead of drag n drop you can try a free tool i've found.

    the tool is named iSyncer

    see http://www.isyncer.de/en

     

    the tool synchronizes selected itunes playlist to usb stick or sd card.

     

    have fun.

  • by curler1947,

    curler1947 curler1947 Mar 26, 2014 6:13 PM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 26, 2014 6:13 PM in response to paintedbird

    I just had to do this today and noticed the playlist was out of order on the thumb drive.  But when I uploaded them from the thumb drive to my wife's MBP into an iTunes playlist the original order was restored.  Has anyone else had this experience?  Does it have to do with the formatting of the thumb drive?

     

    Thanks.

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Mar 26, 2014 7:12 PM in response to curler1947
    Level 9 (79,584 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 26, 2014 7:12 PM in response to curler1947

    curler1947 wrote:

     

    I just had to do this today and noticed the playlist was out of order on the thumb drive.  But when I uploaded them from the thumb drive to my wife's MBP into an iTunes playlist the original order was restored.  Has anyone else had this experience?  Does it have to do with the formatting of the thumb drive?

     

    No. It has to do how you are sorting the songs.

    On the thumb drive, it is sorted on the column you select in the Finder window. There is no track number to sort on in a Finder window.

    In iTunes, it sorts on the column you select in iTunes.

  • by maddog094,

    maddog094 maddog094 Mar 27, 2014 6:53 PM in response to Chris CA
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 27, 2014 6:53 PM in response to Chris CA

    To add a question to this discussion...

     

    Will a iPod compatible stereo be able to read the playlists like it is on an iPod? For example, if I copy three playlists, i.e. Rock, Country and Pop will it read three separate lists and I can tab through them?

     

    I am looking at stereos for my motorcycle and trying to determine if I absolutely have to get a stereo with an iPod connector or if a USB drive will work.

     

    Thank you for your time.

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Mar 27, 2014 7:48 PM in response to maddog094
    Level 9 (79,584 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 27, 2014 7:48 PM in response to maddog094

    maddog094 wrote:

     

    Will a iPod compatible stereo be able to read the playlists like it is on an iPod? For example, if I copy three playlists, i.e. Rock, Country and Pop will it read three separate lists and I can tab through them?

    It is up to the stereo manufacturer if they include this function.

    You will need to look at the specific stereo.

  • by Potter01,

    Potter01 Potter01 Apr 12, 2015 6:47 PM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 12, 2015 6:47 PM in response to paintedbird

    Thank you so much.  I was having a similar problem and your fix worked.

  • by rlorimor,

    rlorimor rlorimor Apr 25, 2015 8:17 AM in response to Potter01
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 25, 2015 8:17 AM in response to Potter01

    I discovered that iTunes  12.1.2.27 automatically numbers songs, in their original order, when I burn a CD from a playlist.  Using the CD with the numbered songs, I copied the playlist to a USB drive.  The songs on the drive are in the same order as the playlist in iTunes with a number assigned to each song.  Much faster than numbering each song individually.   It does waste a CD but if you want to copy many playlists each with dozens of songs, you could do it all at one time using just one CD (in mpeg of course).  It could take all day to number each song in each play list by hand.  With this technique, it takes just a few minutes.

     

    iTunes version 11 does not seem to have this feature.

  • by kpuitz,

    kpuitz kpuitz May 2, 2015 2:08 PM in response to rlorimor
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 2, 2015 2:08 PM in response to rlorimor

    An addition to this discussion...

    First, one question... Do I need to make mp3 versions before I transfer them to the flash drive/stick?

     

    2) Within my playlist, I add/delete songs as I want then I transfer them. I open up the memory stick to confirm and all seem to be OK until I put it in my car. When it is in my car the songs are out of order, the songs that I deleted are there again and each song is duplicated.

     

    Thoughts?

  • by rlorimor,

    rlorimor rlorimor May 2, 2015 2:27 PM in response to kpuitz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 2, 2015 2:27 PM in response to kpuitz

    You do not have to make a MPG version but if you don't use this encoding your player will not be able to display track name and other info associated with each song.

  • by djprezence,

    djprezence djprezence Jul 4, 2015 3:11 PM in response to muzyk4lyfe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 4, 2015 3:11 PM in response to muzyk4lyfe

    THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. SO EASY. NO DOWNLOADING NEEDED!

     

    WINDOWS 7 USER. TRANSFERRING 117 SONGS FROM A PLAYLIST IN ITUNES TO A FOLDER TO TRANSFER TO A USB.

     

    MP3 FILES.

     

    OPEN PLAYLIST.

    CLICK TOP SONG.

    PRESS CTRL + A.

    DRAG TO A FOLDER OF YOUR CHOICE.

    DONE.

    ENJOY!

     

    FILES DIDN'T REMAIN IN THE ORDER THE PLAYLIST PLAYS BUT WHO CARES!

  • by veeper,

    veeper veeper Dec 21, 2015 7:04 AM in response to muzyk4lyfe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 21, 2015 7:04 AM in response to muzyk4lyfe

    This may not be elegant, but it works as it transfers the playlist and music in the order that it is on the iTunes playlist.

     

    Burn your playlist to CD (or DVD if it is large).  I use a rewritable DVD.

     

    Open the CD or DVD in a Finder Window.

     

    Copy the playlist to your flash drive.

     

    In the flashdrive, sort the files by the track number.

  • by scratchy 78,

    scratchy 78 scratchy 78 Sep 16, 2016 11:21 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 16, 2016 11:21 AM in response to paintedbird

    I had the same problem and also figured it out using the above method. But now I have an odd wrinkle. A colleague and I are making several playlists for a prominent music industry person. Each playlist is 3 and one half hours long, and is sequenced. This amounts to around 70 songs per list. I have been numbering each file - doing so while they are in a folder on my desktop - and they have been downloading perfectly in order when sending them via DropBox. However, Dropbox is very unwieldy to use, and our client has had difficulties navigating DropBox successfully. I recently switched to WeTransfer which is much much easier to use. However, when my colleague downloaded the list, and put the list into his iTunes to preview and critique the list before we send it off to the client, the songs were out of sequence, even tho they have all been renumbered. He has gone to View / View as / Playlist and still they are not in the correct order.

    Any suggestions?

  • by scratchy 78,

    scratchy 78 scratchy 78 Sep 16, 2016 11:23 AM in response to scratchy 78
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 16, 2016 11:23 AM in response to scratchy 78

    paintedbirdpaintedbirdLevel 1 (0 points)

    A:

    Holy crap!! I think I just figured it out on my own (and by re-reading/piecing some things together in this thread).

     

    1. Create a new Finder folder on your desktop. Title it with the name of your playlist.

    2. Copy and paste the playlist from iTunes into the folder. No need to change anything in iTunes, just transfer as-is.

    3. Prepend your tracks in the folder on your desktop (i.e. re-name them with the number of the track preceeding the track title). This will not change the title of the tracks in iTunes.

    4. Drag and drop the folder of your playlist into your USB.

    5. Voila! Tracks are transferred in order!

     

    I figured out that the key is to prepend the tracks while still on your desktop so that the information will transfer over to the USB like that. I was trying to prepend in the USB, but the data from the songs must have still been ingrained from when they were transferred over.

     

    Hope this helps someone else out, too! I noticed that there hasn't been a clear answer on any of the message boards yet (at least, that I was able to use).

    Posted on Sep 13, 2013 9:04 AM

    Sorry - I meant to include the above post in my reply just now. This is the method I have been using to 'lock in' the sequence of my playlists prior to the We Transfer problem.

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