by This week’s column looks at some common problems with iTunes, some quirks with iTunes Match, and explains how to update smart playlists, among other subjects.
Q: I have a number of smart playlists but, after a month or so, they get stale. Is there any way to get them to refresh periodically and automatically with all new songs that fit the playlist criteria?
I don’t know of any way to do so automatically, but it’s easy to do so manually. Just select all the tracks in a playlist—click one track, then press Command-A—and press the Delete key. They tracks will be removed from the playlist, and iTunes will repopulate it using the conditions you set for it.
However, perhaps you want to use live updating, so playlists change as you play them. If you select the Live updating option in the smart playlist window, iTunes will constantly update the playlist according to the tracks’ metadata. You’d generally use this for playlists that have a “Plays” or “Last Played” condition; it doesn’t work for metadata that doesn’t change, such as artist, genre, and so on. For example, you might want to create a playlist of your favorite songs by a certain artist, or from a specific genre, but only those you haven’t listened to in the past month.
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