Transferring iTunes Playlist to USB While Maintaining Track Order

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Level 1

3 points

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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Answer 1

rlorimor

Level 1

10 points

Jun 24, 2017 12:21 PM in response to paintedbird

Numbering songs in the Finder file is a real pain, particularly if your playlist contains 100 or more as do mine. A neat way to maintain song order is to burn the playlist to a CD. If you use mpeg format, you can get burn a playlist with 150 songs or more. Next, copy the CD to a flash drive or a file folder. Itunes numbers the songs when burning to a CD so it save you the time of numbering them one by one.

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Answer 2

rlorimor

Level 1

10 points

Jun 24, 2017 12:26 PM in response to ed2345

Numbering songs in the Finder file is a real pain, particularly if your playlist contains 100 or more as do mine. A neat way to maintain song order is to burn the playlist from iTunes to a CD. If you use mpeg format, you can get burn a playlist with 150 songs or more. Next, copy the CD to a flash drive or a file folder. Itunes numbers the songs when burning to a CD so it save you the time of numbering them one by one.

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Answer 3

ed2345

Level 9

62,486 points

Sep 13, 2013 7:29 AM in response to paintedbird

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5298416

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Answer 4

paintedbird Author

Level 1

3 points

Sep 13, 2013 7:42 AM in response to ed2345

"The M3U approach is nice, but hardly anyone uses it, and in iTunes 11 it does not even work. The way it is almost always done is to put the files in a folder and prepend 01, 02, etc.; see monthly CMJ mixtape for an example."

Hmm... I'm sorry, but I do not understand this solution. What is "prepend?" I didn't see a clear example of that in the monthly CMJ mixtape; however, thanks for the link to the awesome playlist! lol

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Answer 5

ed2345

Level 9

62,486 points

Sep 13, 2013 7:54 AM in response to paintedbird

Painted Bird,

It means to put the track number as the first few characters of the filename. When you unzip the CMJ mixtape, you see something like the below.

The advantage of this approach is that the tracks will now sort in the correct order when they are viewed in Finder (or Windows Explorer).

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Answer 6

paintedbird Author

Level 1

3 points

Sep 13, 2013 8:06 AM in response to ed2345

Ok, but I thought that is what I already did when I re-numbered/re-named the tracks. However, I re-numbered them once they were already on my USB... is that the problem? Are you saying to re-number/re-name (is that prepending) them in iTunes? Will that make it so they are permanently that way in my iTunes (or, at least, unless I un-do the re-naming after the transfer is complete), or will it only affect the titles in the playlist?

Sorry for all the questions! But thank you for bearing with me! 😉

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Answer 7

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Sep 13, 2013 8:18 AM in response to paintedbird

paintedbird wrote:

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.

Note that you can sort on any column header whether it is viewed in iTunes or in a Finder/Windows Explorer window.

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Answer 8

paintedbird Author

Level 1

3 points

Sep 13, 2013 8:29 AM in response to ed2345

Update: I just tried "prepending" the tracks in my iTunes playlist, and it looked like it might have worked, but it also changed the track name in my iTunes overall (not just the playlist). Kind of annoying, but I guess I can un-do it once the transfer is done. Is there seriously not an easier way? 😢

Also, even though things looked good in iTunes after I changed the track names, once they were transferred to the USB, the track name still contained the original track numbers and stayed in that order (see below). WTH?

,

Am I completely missing something here?

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Answer 9

paintedbird Author

Level 1

3 points

Sep 13, 2013 9:04 AM in response to paintedbird

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).

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Answer 10

ed2345

Level 9

62,486 points

Sep 13, 2013 9:44 AM in response to paintedbird

Yes, you got it.

Cool playlist, by the way. 🙂

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Answer 11

paintedbird Author

Level 1

3 points

Sep 13, 2013 10:25 AM in response to ed2345

Why, thank you. 😎

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Answer 12

Oct 14, 2013 10:51 PM in response to paintedbird

For large playlists, you can automate the process of sequencially prepending numbers to the track file names by using an Automator workflow. Instructions here!

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Answer 13

DCox10

Level 1

1 points

Jan 3, 2014 9:06 AM in response to paintedbird

I've tried the solution you suggested but the "Paste button is grayed out when I attempt to paste the playlist to the new Finder folder. What am I neglecting to do?

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Answer 14

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Jan 3, 2014 9:34 AM in response to DCox10

DCox10 wrote:

I've tried the solution you suggested but the "Paste button is grayed out when I attempt to paste the playlist to the new Finder folder. What am I neglecting to do?

You need to select & copy all the songs in the playlist, not the name of the playlist.

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Answer 15

DCox10

Level 1

1 points

Jan 3, 2014 12:41 PM in response to Chris CA

I did select and copy all the songs in the playlist. In fact, I tried it several times before posting my query.

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