paintedbird

Q: 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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Q: Transferring iTunes Playlist to USB While Maintaining Track Order

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  • by ed2345,Helpful

    ed2345 ed2345 Sep 13, 2013 7:29 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 7 (24,801 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 7:29 AM in response to paintedbird
  • by paintedbird,

    paintedbird paintedbird Sep 13, 2013 7:42 AM in response to ed2345
    Level 1 (0 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

  • by ed2345,Helpful

    ed2345 ed2345 Sep 13, 2013 7:54 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 7 (24,801 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).

     

    cmj mixtape.png

  • by paintedbird,

    paintedbird paintedbird Sep 13, 2013 8:06 AM in response to ed2345
    Level 1 (0 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!

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Sep 13, 2013 8:18 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 9 (79,538 points)
    iPhone
    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.

  • by paintedbird,

    paintedbird paintedbird Sep 13, 2013 8:29 AM in response to ed2345
    Level 1 (0 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?

     

    Screen shot 2013-09-13 at 10.22.10 AM.png

     

    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?

     

    , Screen shot 2013-09-13 at 10.20.25 AM.png
    Am I completely missing something here?

  • by paintedbird,Solvedanswer

    paintedbird paintedbird Sep 13, 2013 9:04 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (0 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).

  • by ed2345,

    ed2345 ed2345 Sep 13, 2013 9:44 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 7 (24,801 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 9:44 AM in response to paintedbird

    Yes, you got it. 

     

    Cool playlist, by the way. 

  • by paintedbird,

    paintedbird paintedbird Sep 13, 2013 10:25 AM in response to ed2345
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 13, 2013 10:25 AM in response to ed2345

    Why, thank you.

  • by zara2stra,

    zara2stra zara2stra Oct 14, 2013 10:51 PM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (0 points)
    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!

  • by DCox10,

    DCox10 DCox10 Jan 3, 2014 9:06 AM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (0 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?

  • by Chris CA,

    Chris CA Chris CA Jan 3, 2014 9:34 AM in response to DCox10
    Level 9 (79,538 points)
    iPhone
    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.

  • by DCox10,

    DCox10 DCox10 Jan 3, 2014 12:41 PM in response to Chris CA
    Level 1 (0 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.

  • by David Kelly1,

    David Kelly1 David Kelly1 Feb 6, 2014 8:39 PM in response to paintedbird
    Level 1 (25 points)
    iPad
    Feb 6, 2014 8:39 PM in response to paintedbird

    paintedbird wrote:

     

    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.

    I am guessing the above is Microsoft's fault. Seriously.

     

    FAT filesystems as commonly used on USB and SD memory are stuck with 8.3 filenames. Microsoft's hack to fix that is to use an invisible file which cross references the mixed case long filename you see displayed with the calculated 8.3. Guessing your player only bothers with the 8.3 names. The 8.3 names are normally never seen so there is no point in changing that name just because you changed the long name.

     

    So if you prefix a number to your song names before copying then that prefixed number will be used in creating shortened 8.3 names on the USB media.

     

    The filenames don't matter to the MP3 player because the player uses only info embedded in the song file, the stuff you see with the Info command in iTunes.

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