You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: Innov8-1
Innov8-1 Author
User level: Level 1
35 points

Smart Playlist Rules Won't Apply

Have you ever created an Apple Music Smart Playlist using "comments" as the defining rule in selecting tunes for the list? (As in "Comments contains Smith")


I started segmenting a large playlist of songs I use for a group of guys who play billiards on Friday nights. The over-reaching playlist is defined by a "grouping" assigned to the songs in the playlist, so I needed another field to segregate the songs according to each billiard player's preferences, using their last names in the comment field.


And while I can create separate playlists (non-smart) by selecting and dragging songs into each player's playlist, it just seemed simpler to create smart playlists and have Music keep track of the lists for me.


However, I'm using the "comment" field as noted, and find that Music doesn't pick up all the songs that meet the rules criteria for the smart playlist. In fact, only a fraction of the criteria-matching songs end up on the test smart playlist I'm experimenting with.


So what're your thoughts? Thanks, in advance, for your help

iMac 24″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Sep 25, 2024 4:01 PM

Reply
4 replies
User profile for user: Innov8-1
Innov8-1 Author
User level: Level 1
35 points

Sep 26, 2024 2:50 AM in response to ed2345

Thanks for your reply. It got me thinking. Maybe you can explain this:


  • When I was creating playlists for each of my friends I would find the song they liked on Apple Music and add it directly to their named playlist (non-smart). The songs played fine and I was able to select and drag them to a larger playlist that combined all of my friends' songs
  • But....I never looked in my library to see if the songs appeared there. I just assumed that when I added a song to any playlist, it automatically was added to my library. Lo and behold, the songs I had added to this friend's playlist (I haven't checked the others yet) were NOT in my library
  • Therefore, the songs were not found by the smart playlist because Music apparently only looks at your library songs
  • I added my friend's playlist songs to my library, and viola, they appeared in the smart playlist. Problem solved.


BTW My smart playlist did only include one rule.


For me, the lesson I learned is that just because you add a song to a playlist (directly from Apple Music) doesn't mean that that song is added to your library, and therefore not available for auto-select in smart playlists.


So thanks for sparking the thought process that led to this solution.


Reply

Smart Playlist Rules Won't Apply

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up