Playlist folders becoming Smart Playlist Folders

I had this same problem: I have 4 playlist folders, each with a number of playlists inside them. I also have a smart playlist called "Unsorted" which used to be each have in its rules to exclude each of the 4 playlist folders. That stopped working when I migrated to Windows. I found this forum and one of the responses above mentioned changes to the "file system" used by iTunes (essentially its database), and that had me try this, which worked:

• I replaced each playlist folder with a new one (File > New > Playlist Folder), named it e.g. "Uptempo 2", and moved all the playlists which were in the original "Uptempo" playlist folder into "Uptempo 2".
• Then, I deleted the original "Uptempo" and renamed "Uptempo 2" to "Uptempo". I did that with all my playlist folders.
• Finally, I went into the rules for the "Unsorted" smart playlist, and linked the "Playlist"/"is not" rules to the new playlist folders, and it saved correctly! I hope this helps whoever comes across it

Yes that's right, if you duplicate a playlist it copies the view layout. Its only when you create one from scratch that it used the Songs layout. So that means creating each playlist new, and then copying the contents from the old one to make this work.

(Doug's Scripts had a script for doing this but it has not been updated for Apple Music yet)

If you're on a Mac you can create a shortcut for any menu item:

• Open system preferences > Keyboard
• Select Shortcuts tab
• Select App Shortcuts from the panel and Add (+) new
• Select Apple Music and enter the exact menu name - 'as Songs' plus a shortcut

I'm confused, there are three types of playlist objects, regular playlists into which you can manually add content, smart playlists where the content is defined by a set of rules, and playlist folder which can contain a mix of regular playlists, smart playlists, and playlist folders. What is a smart playlist folder?

tt2

Try holding down option+cmd as you launch Music. This will open it in safe mode, which should repair inconsistencies in the library, including hopefully which icon should be used for playlist folders.

tt2

Was the library converted when you upgraded from Mojave(?) to Catalina, or have you imported the library to Music since upgrading? If you imported did you access the .itl file or the .xml file? Can you post a screenshot of what you see that you think is wrong? Is there an Edit Rules button at the top if you select one of these Smart Playlist Folders?

tt2

Opening the previous .itl file might have done a better job of converting the library from the iTunes format to the Music format. Although iTunes and Music both include XML export and import routines it isn't necessarily the case that an XML exported from iTunes will be interpreted properly by Music. That said there are people using XML import as a workaround when Music chokes on the .itl file. What sort of rules does the Smart Playlist (that used to be a) Folder have? E.g. Match Any, Playlist is A, Playlist is B, etc.? Does it still have a disclosure icon in the side bar to reveal the individual lists, or has that gone? I.e. is it that you have a smart playlist, rather than a playlist folder, due to some error in translating the XML.

tt2

I still cannot make it go wrong. Can you create before and after screenshots that show the playlist folders normally and then the smart playlists that you get after the fact. It would be interesting to see the rules that are generated by this process. Together that could form the basis of some feedback or a bug report.

tt2