iPod How can I copy the music in a playlist?

[Doctor Q]

I want to copy some of the music files from my iTunes library and I want to identify the songs to be copied using an iTunes playlist. For example, I create a smart playlist for

Kind=Protected AAC Audio File AND Date Added is after 6/30/08​

and now I want to copy those .m4p files to another disk as a backup.

I'm not talking about backing up the information in the playlist itself (here are instructions for that). I'm talking about copying the real music files that correspond to the playlist.

Is there a script, Automator action, application, or other way to do this?

 

[Blue Velvet]

You can select the tracks in an iTunes window/playlist and drag and drop them from that window, thereby copying them, to the desktop or another drive.

 

[Doctor Q]

Is that something I can script or automate? I'm thinking of using this kind of scheme for music backups or for shuttling my music to other authorized machines in groups.

Dragging by hand is a good second choice if I can't automate it for a particular playlist name and destination location.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Oh, I thought it was just for a one-off event.

This script from Doug does something similar, maybe it could be modified for a particular type of playlist, or perhaps there's something else on his site that could do the job.

There are tons of scripts there; check the categories on the left-hand navigation bar. I've used some of his scripts for managing lossless files and libraries before.

Unfortunately, that's the limit of my knowledge.

 

[Doctor Q]

My question was really about both cases. Thanks, Blue Velvet. I'll look around there.

My favorite of Doug's apps has always been the iTunes Music Store Player.