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How do YOU organize your iTunes library?

My buddy just outgrew his iMac's hard drive so he bought a really nice Lacie external drive and asked me to come over and migrate iTunes, etc.

I literally laughed when I started poking around his music. He wasn't using a single playlist for about 100GB of music. I just always taken it as a given that people with large libraries(and especially "album listeners" like I'm sure most of us are) create a playlist that is the name of the artist and album i.e. Television-Marquee Moon.

He says he just uses cover-flow to navigate through everything. Watching him take like 45 seconds to find a specific album using that method I just had to show him the light.

After a little tutorial he told me that this was like a revelation and he never even thought about doing this where as I never thought about doing it any other way. He freaked out at first because we started making a few hundred playlists but I think I have him on the right track. I mean...pick an album from the playlists listed and listen...right?

Does this make sense? Do ya'll not do this? What do YOU do?
128x128synthfreek

Showing 4 responses by thomasedison

thomasedison
34 posts
 
At first glance I thought you wee kidding, Synthfreek. But maybe YOU need to see the light.

I have 500gb of music in my iTunes library and I would never waste my time making a playlist of an album. If I want to listen to a particular album I simply type its name in the iTunes search box. I can do the same to bring up a particular song or artist. I can also call up all albums in a particular genre this way, which I can also then shuffle for an on-the-spot random mix when I'm in the mood for "Jazz" or "Rock" but don't have a particular album in mind.

This method calls up what I ask for in 2 seconds.

I would only need to make a playlist of an album if I was going to burn it to cd. My playlists are usually mixes I have created of songs from various artists to play at parties or when I'm in a particular mood. To create a theme-based playlist I select 'smart playlist', choose 'name', and add a key word like 'love' or 'rain' or 'drive' to create theme-based playlist of songs on that theme.

I hope that helps you and your friend with iTunes.

Cheers.
thomasedison
34 posts
 
"I can type 3 letters of an artist's name that I have dozens of albums of and see all of the albums in alphabetical order...instantly."

I can do that without playlists by
going to the iTunes search bar, choosing "Artist" in the pull down menu (next to the magnifying glass) and typing those same 3 letters in the iTunes box.

Once I select an album, I click on 'cover flow' view, and then go to the View menu and select "Full Screen".

When I want to view my playlists, I don't have 300-3000 playlists of albums to sort through, only a few dozen unique playlists that are themes or smart playlists.

To each his own.
thomasedison
34 posts
 
Synthfreek,

I have been playing around with your suggested playlist method of organizing iTunes. I now see some of your logic.

I didn't know about the macro to make a playlist from a selected artist or album and that is very cool.

I appreciate that selecting a playlist of an album is the only way to show that album's artwork by itself on full screen without showing other albums around it (standard cover view).

However, I haven't figured out how you can be taken to a specific playlist by typing in the search bar. With my huge library, that is essential for me to get to what I want quickly.
thomasedison
34 posts
 
Wow. It works. That is a hidden function. Thanks.
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