Sorting by Date Added, but I how can I have songs sorted by track number?

Sort your music library using the "Album" column. You can cycle between album, album by artist, and album by artist by year by clicking the column title. You can't sort by album order and date added simultaneously.

You can still sort the "Purchases" playlist by date added if you need that information.

Edit the recently added playlist or make your own smart playlist using rules something like this:



Sort that playlist by album and you should have what you want.

Change the smart playlist rules as you like.

Hi Mick...

Sadly iTunes isn't built the way you want it right now. A workaround is to ensure you add your new imports, one track at a time, in reverse track order, at least one second apart (probably not a problem if you're doing it by hand, but it makes a difference). If that sounds like a drag I've written a Windows vbScript for automating the process called SortDateAdded and rather foolishly suggested in another thread the other day that it ought not to be too hard to migrate my script into AppleScript. I've since had a look at an online AppleScript primer which leads me to think the job is little harder than I first thought but I have organised some access to a Mac for testing so I will try to give it a go over the next week or so.

tt2

To sort the smart playlist by album, rather than alphabetically, you have to select the album column.

@ Jim
I think perhaps you've missed what the MIck wants i.e. a library ordered by *Date Added* so that each new addition to the library appears at the top of the list. In addition when sorted on this column he wants the tracks to be listed in the correct track order. It's an obscure request but he is by no means alone. This effect can't currently be achieved directly in iTunes. It would be trivial for Apple to implement this ordering if they chose to do so but as users that's out of our control. In response to a similar thread I wrote a Windows script a while back that removes and reimports selected tracks one by one, in reverse order, at least one second apart (as tracks with the same timestamp are ordered alphabetically). To be useful it needs to be used after each import but it is better than nothing.

@ Mick:
I'm well aware of Doug's AppleScript site and often offer links to his scripts where they seem appropriate. As a PC user I haven't had the opportunity to use them however. I'm pretty certain he doesn't, as yet, have anything that works the same way as my script. I'll probably have a stab at converting my script myself for the challenge, but if I don't get anywhere I'll drop him a line.

tt2

Hi,
I found out how to do this. 1. Click on "Purchased" playlist. 2. Sort on "Purchase date". 3. Make sure that "Artist" column is all same names or empty.

Now all tracks should be in correct order and albums sorted by date of purchase.

/M

Hmm I see...but anyway, my attempted solution show that sorting has something to do with the contents of other fields like "artist" or similar which in turn indicates that altering the values of those fields impacts sorting either way. Why cannot someone at Apple just tell us how to do it?
/m

Step 1) Sort the iTunes library by Track Number
Step 2) Re-sort the iTunes library by Purchase Date

So long as all the tracks were purchased on the same day (which should be the case if you bought the album as a whole, unless you did so a few minutes before midnight), this should give you what you want. Typically, the previous sort order is retained when there are identical values in the subsequent sort field.

I think that'll give you what you want.

iTunes doesn't use the result of one sort to fine tune the order of the next one. Some columns (e.g Album) sort by more values than the column itself but as end users we get no control over those other values.

Sorry I've not got around to the Mac version of my script yet. I've spent the last few weeks fighting a chest infection and an overloaded schedule at work. I had hoped to work on it this evening but I'm having to rebuild a complex linked system of spreadsheets for a Monday deadline when I could really use about 3 days on the task...

tt2

Got access to the Mac today and I'm not having much luck. Apple's "natural" script language is looking pretty unnatural to me from what I've seen so far. First hurdle is there doesn't seem to be an easy way to create the array of files path for sorting. I also can't find any equivalent to the iTunes COM SDK for Windows which lets me know which properties I can access via the script and how to manipulate them. I think you may need to ask Doug for his help on this one...

tt2