Create a Smart Playlist to Fill Your iPod Create the Smart Playlist as described in
35 Create a Smart Playlist . Specify criteria according to your taste; you might want to choose only music rated three stars or higher, or you might opt for music from another Smart Playlist that only contains certain genres, or you might allow the playlist to include music from your entire library. The important part is the
Limit to option.
Enable the
Limit to check box; then, using the text input field and drop-down menu, specify the capacity of your iPod in megabytes (MB) rather than gigabytes (GB)this approach allows you to define a playlist that's just a little bit less than the capacity of your iPod, which allows for some leeway in case you want to add a couple of other playlists as well. For example, if you have a 20GB iPod (whose physical capacity is 18.6 gigabytes or 19,046 megabytes), set up your Smart Playlist to be limited to
18,500 megabytes to ensure that there's extra space for other playlists of cool songs you want to make sure are always available on the iPod. (Adjust these numbers according to your tastes and needs.)
TIP
You can avoid putting songs on the iPod that you've deemed unworthy of listening by disabling the check boxes next to their names in the iTunes Library . The first way is by enabling the Only update checked songs option in the iTunes Preferences window, on the General page of the iPod tab. When you're defining a Smart Playlist as in this step, the second way to avoid songs you don't like is to enable the Match only checked songs check box in the Smart Playlist's definition.
Finally, choose an appropriate policy from the
selected by drop-down menu. You might choose to select songs with the
highest rating , or that are the
most often played or the
least recently played . If you choose
random , you get a broad cross-of the music defined by the Smart Playlist's other criteria.
If you're selecting music by
random and you want to get a different randomized selection of music, first lower the Smart Playlist's size to almost nothing (enter
1 in the text input field) and save the Smart Playlist; then edit it again to return it to its former size. This approach forces iTunes to rebuild the playlist from new random selections.
Click
OK to save the Smart Playlist; give it a name such as
Fill My iPod .