can you direct songs that are added using the Automatically add to iTunes folder to a specific playlist?

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Level 1

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can you direct songs that are added using the Automatically add to iTunes folder to a specific playlist?

I would like to automate some songs to go to a specific playlist. Itunes drives me nuts because I download some radio shows every day and the names of the files are always the date followed by the name 12-15-2012-My-Show.mp3 for example yet they don't always display in the songs area alphebetically. Don't know why this happens but its infuriating when I search all my music and can't find them. (usually they're there but listed differently for some odd reason). Since I do it everyday I'd like to make all of them go to the same playlist regardless of the display name. What can I do? FYI - Everyone I talk to about ipods and iphones says the same thing "How can you make such a good product and then force people to use a piece of crap like iTunes to manage it?" Just saying, I've had mp3 players before that were so simple to use because they treated it like a flash drive. Just move your files to it and your done. Create subfolders and you had playlists. Itunes is so NOT user friendly its ridiculous. And I work in the IT field, I can imagine how infuriating it is to the novice computer user.

iPod nano, Windows Vista

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 6:02 AM

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Answer 1

the fiend

Level 7

22,506 points

Dec 19, 2012 8:28 AM in response to jdawgfromct

If these shows are named in the format you mention (e.g. 12-15-2012-My-Show) then "alphabetically", the order will be by the number "12" first. So 12, (December) would be listed before the episode of 9-15-2012-My-Show because alphabetically, 1 comes before 9 (and therefore 12 is before 9). This is because those numbers are in a text field, not a dedicated number field. The way around that would be to name the September episodes as 09 (zero-nine) and so on.

As for automatically adding them to a Playlist, you could try experimenting with a Smart Playlist; that may be the answer to the issue of grouping them automatically. (Note my use of experiment, and may).

For example, if the shows are all named with "My-Show" at the end of the title, create a Smart Playlist as follows (click on the image to see it larger):

You'll note that every song in that list ends with "love". If any rogue entries appear in such a list, you will need to work out how to exclude them. For example, you could add a second rule which excludes specific songs. Hence, experimenting.

jdawgfromct wrote:

FYI - Everyone I talk to about ipods and iphones says the same thing "How can you make such a good product and then force people to use a piece of crap like iTunes to manage it?"

Perhaps you should talk to some different people.

Just saying...

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