Organizing a Huge iTunes Music Library with Tags and Smart Playlists
Tag your music well, because if you have 100,000 tracks in your library and you can’t find anything it is the only chance you have of staying on top of everything. Here are some principles and practical ideas on how to manage and maintain a huge iTunes library.
It all starts with the tags, because they cover such a broad selection of your songs that they can update large sections at once, and from here you can use smart playlists to narrow down your organizing even further. When using playlists, always choose the Smart Playlist as this updates as your music collection changes.
Regardless of whether you paid for your iTunes music or you were savvy enough to get yourself a free iTunes gift cards to get songs for your iPod – there is nothing worse than an unorganized music library. Tags are the key to starting the process of staying organised.
Use downtime to tag and rate old stuff that gets lost. For example, rate music on your iPod. Also, get Quicksilver or Butler and set up shortcut keys for assigning ratings to your music while it’s playing. You can do this without interrupting the current app you’re using, and it’s a good way of rating stuff fairly transparently.
You can also spend 10 minutes doing some tagging in downtime, this can really help bring your music into line.
Keep up to date with new tracks by setting up a smart playlist. The best way to do this is to set your smart playlist to include recently added songs and only those with a 0 rating. Once you then tag and rate then they will disappear from the list thus keeping your iTunes library constantly in check.
Take those genres that sound and looks very similar and cull those which you don’t use. There is no point having twelve different types of rap and hip hop genres if you do not even listen to that style of music. This just clutters your organizing abilities.
It is more important to impose a system that works and that you stay consistent with than it is how you go about it. Whether is it tags, playlists, genres, or a mix of all three to organize your huge iTunes library the important element is that you find a way to do it that works, and you stick with it.
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May 16, 2011 | Posted by Jim McIntyre
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