iPod Dealing with a larger library than iPod

[aspro]

How do you do it?

Do you randomly select the songs to be synced, do you have certain playlists used for syncing, do you handpick songs?

I'm interested in finding out if anyone in the macrumors community has a better system than mine: I have a playlist that randomly selects songs that are rated above three stars upto 3.4gb, then have a playlist of any songs added in the last week. This usually leaves me enough room for podcasts, but not always. (iPod nano 4GB)

So how do you do deal with it?

 

[onemacmini]

i have a fair few over a 1000 and my brothers mini ipod is managed by me so what we do is put the songs we have rated 3 stars or more in playlists of you preference then we go to libary press command-a and ctrl click so there all unchecked. then we go to our playlists and command-A and check them. i dont know anyone who listens to over 1000 songs everytime they take their ipod out.

 

[homerjward]

after i filled my 15gb i just stopped syncing. occasionally ill bump something off and put some new stuff on. i need to fill it from scratch sometime...(15gb ipod, 25.5gb library)

 

[yellow]

I have always manually put my songs on my iPod.

 

[Chundles]

All 3 of mine are manually managed for songs/playlists.

Automatic for contacts/calendars and selected podcasts.

 

[greg555]

I have 10GB of songs and a 6GB mini.

I have 4 smart playlists named Some 2 star, Some 3 star, Some 4 star and Some 5 star. In these I set the number of MB so the total fits into my iPod. And I use least recently played.

Then I have a bunch of smart playlists that use the "Some" ones. Like a 2-5 star one, a 3-5 startone, a 4-5 star, one, a female vocalist one, Canadian artist one, and a bunch of decade ones.

I also have an Unrated playlist of a few hundred MB. So when I rip some more CDs I usually disable the loading of the Some 2 star list to make room for the unrated songs.

So depending on my mood I can listen to the Unrated playlist and rate them, listen to just my best songs or get some 2 or 3 star ones if I want.

Works for me - Greg

 

[mad jew]

I have my usual favourite tunes couple with a playlist picking the newest 20GB of tracks. I sync these playlists automatically.

 

[steve_hill4]

I have PodCasts set to sync automatically, but music manually. This way I can use the iPod to play music through my MacBook Pro, (when it comes), without the need for carrying around another external hard drive, or taking up space on my MBP. Since I figure I will be carrying my MBP and iPod around together most of the time I would want to play music through both, it isn't a problem.

Currently on my PC, Podcasts get automatically downloaded to the library, so are auto synched and I have a seperate Playlist that allows me to drag new music to it ready to sync, (that way if I don't sync for a few days, I know what isn't already on there). Later on, since my library will be near empty, I might not need this, but for now when I plug it in, I simply drag the new music from that playlist to the iPod.

 

[Senex Prime]

Simplest way is to set up a "Master" Smart Playlist that limits size of the playlist to something slightly smaller than the capacity of your iPod, sorted by "Least Recently Played". That way, when you sync with your Mac, all the songs you have listened to on your iPod since the last sync go to the back of the list (ie, off the iPod at the end of the queue) and new songs get put onto your iPod. You can make all sorts of other "iPod only" Smart Playlists that draw their songs from this "Master" playlist so you still get your required level of variety. Works for me (10GB 2G iPod with a 16GB library).

 

[scmacdaddy]

podcasts

how do i create a smart playlist that only contains the most recent episode of a podcast?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I have a large number of playlists, some manual, some smart ones (some of which use the manuak ones) that I use when I listen to music from my iBook, anyway.

The base, in many ways, are the Top 250 Most Played smart list and 5 manual lists which I manage every now and then (A, B, C and D with at the most 35 songs each of what I currently listen to, and a messy E list with almost 500 songs that not quite make it to the 4 lists above or has been on them but been replaced).

I spend way too much time managing my iTunes library, but - on the other hand - much less time then I did making mixed tapes during the 80s...

I've set iTunes to automatically sync using some of those playlists onto my iPod mini, and it typically holds 7-800 songs, and I've never, in the almost 2 years I've had it, wanted to listen to a specific song that wasn't on the iPod...