can you import an excel list of songs as a playlist?

Unfortunately not. iTunes uses its own internal Library files to create and monitor playlists - it's a kind of database of its own, which it links to all your music etc.

I had this problem once, when all my music was catalogued in FileMaker Pro, and when I started using iTunes extensively I wanted to get all that data in there. But in the end I had to swallow the pill and do it all manually.

Hmm... this ought to be possible if the spreadsheet contains the full paths to the files in a column called Location. Try making a small test playlist, exporting as text, then importing it again. I'm new to Mac and playing around with Numbers I can't quite seem to get an edited and reexported playlist in quite the right layout for iTunes to be happy reimporting but I suspect I stripped out too much or need to tweak the export to text options.

tt2

Save the file as a .csv and import into iTunes and see what happens.

turingtest2 wrote:

Hmm... this ought to be possible if the spreadsheet contains the full paths to the files in a column called Location. Try making a small test playlist, exporting as text, then importing it again. I'm new to Mac and playing around with Numbers I can't quite seem to get an edited and reexported playlist in quite the right layout for iTunes to be happy reimporting but I suspect I stripped out too much or need to tweak the export to text options.

tt2

I'll have a go at it out later tonight.

I exported a playlist as plain text.

Opened it in Numbers and everything is there.

I saved it out as .CSV but alas, it would not open.

Looks like it needs to be a TAB separated values.

I copied the table, then open TextEdit and pasted it into a blank document.

Saved as plain text and it then imported into iTunes just fine.

Looks like you need all the column names from iTunes as the column header.

Name, Artist, Composer, Album, Location, etc.

Export a playlist from iTunes and copy the first row then paste in your spreadsheet.

but the lsit I have isnt in the standard playlist form. it only has name,artist, album all within the same cell on Excel.

To do anything with this list, you will need to break this info up into individual cells.

Do you have these songs already in iTunes?

If not, you can create a regualr playlist, then drag the songs from the Finder window directly to the playlist name. This adds them to iTunes and the playlist at the same time.

I doubt you need to fill in the details, but it seems you must have the correct headings in place if iTunes is going to import it. I don't have time to test it myself just now, but blank columns apart from the location would, I assume, not stop it working, nor edit the tags of the imported tracks.

tt2

Ah right, yes, you have to have the location as minimum information. Assuming unique song names it ought to be possible to export the current contents of the library, create a lookup table for song name to location, and then merge that data back into your original list. Likely there are at least some duplicate song names which will make it a bit harder to get right, but it should stil be possible.

tt2

Export the current song list from your libray and delete all the columns except Name and Location, put this as a second sheet in a workbook along with the playlist that you're trying to import. You can then setup a lookup array.

Suppose you've created this lookup table (note it should be sorted on the first column)

Then VLookup("Bob",$A$1:$B$3,2) would return the value "There".

Instead of "Bob" you'd use a reference to the cell in the name column, and you'd put the forumla in the currently empty location column. The lookup table would be better as a named range. Once the data is in place you can copy and paste special as values, then save sheet with the playlist as the tab separated CSV file that you'll want to import.

tt2