ITUNES PLAYLIST FOLDERS DO NOT RECOGNIZE CONTENTS OF SUBFOLDERS

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Level 1

20 points

ITUNES PLAYLIST FOLDERS DO NOT RECOGNIZE CONTENTS OF SUBFOLDERS

I have a big library and I consider myself an advanced user of iTunes. I create folders and put playlists in them to organize my music. For example, I have a “greatest hits” folder which has 20 playlists - each for a different artist (e.g. Bob Dylan, Beatles, Pinback). When you create a “new” playlist it goes to the bottom of everything in the side bar and you have to go find it and move it into the folder which is a minor PITA. So instead, I duplicate playlists, erase the contents, rename it and then populate it. Unfortunately, after having done this LOADS OF TIMES I have now realized the folders do not recognize the contents of duplicated playlists. How can I force the folders to refresh and recognize the contents of these “duplicated” playlists (which do NOT have duplicated contents - for the people who need more detail: I had a Bob Dylan playlist, duplicated it, renamed the duplicate “coldplay best of,” deleted the Bob songs and filled it with coldplay songs and now the greatest hits folder only shows Bob songs... and I’ve of course restarted and done all those kinds of things).

iMac, macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 27, 2020 11:38 AM

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Answer 1

ed2345

Level 9

62,852 points

Apr 28, 2020 2:46 PM in response to Spencerian6

Spencer,

Looks like a bug! I was able to reproduce it as follows: Dragged a playlist into a playlist folder, duplicated it, and added some songs to the duplicate. When I did a shuffle play at the folder level, it failed to notice the songs I had dragged into the duplicate.

I do not know a way to make it recognize the new songs. If you feel energetic, you can report the problem to Apple at this link: http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html Meanwhile, hopefully you can find a suitable workaround, e.g. drag in the songs you want without the duplication step, or whatever works in your case.

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Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

62,852 points

Apr 27, 2020 6:38 PM in response to Spencerian6

Spencer,

I ave never noticed that, but I assume you know you are not really using playlists optimally. If you want to quickly get to all the songs of particular artist, such as Coldplay or that Bob guy, use the Column Browser. It can be enabled in the View menu.

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Answer 3

Spencerian6 Author

Level 1

20 points

Apr 28, 2020 11:51 AM in response to ed2345

Ed,

I think you may have misunderstood what I’m saying about how I’m using playlists - probably because I didn’t lay it out. Regardless, while I appreciate your chiming in, your response doesn’t really touch at all on the problem (see below in the last paragraph where I restate the problem).

but to lay it out: So, for Bob, for example, he’s got many compilations of “best of” or greatest hits in his discography. He also has 33 proper albums and hundreds of songs. So I created my very own “best of Bob Dylan” in which I combined all the songs from his greatest hits, greatest hits II, and then the songs those didn’t capture which were on The Essential Bob Dylan, and then my favorite additional 10 or so songs from his most recent albums. That way I have a playlist I can go to and give Bob a listen without having to dig through his albums if I’m not in the mood for the deeper cuts.

alternatively, bands like Coldplay do not yet have a greatest hits. So I made one. Again for the same reason. But I have other folders with other playlists for other reasons - all of which have the same problem.

That is, (for those of you who stuck with me through that): the parent folder does not populate with songs in playlists where the playlist has been created by duplicating and then editing a previously existing playlist. Therefore, if you use my greatest hits folder as an example, if I click on the greatest hits folder which has more than 20 greatest hits playlists and over a thousand songs (and which would make for a very pleasant evening of music particularly if shuffled), the only songs that appear in the parent folder are Bob’s hits because I duplicated that list as the foundation for other lists. So... how do I force the parent folder to refresh and recognize the new contents of the playlists which began their lives via duplication?

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