Save masses of time with your iPod tracks.

There are loads of ways to manage your iPod tracks. The totally best way is using the Smart Playlists. I have chosen 5 ways to utilise the Smart Playlist.

Smart Playlist #1 My Limited Top Tracks This can be done through iTunes icon in the Dock or system tray while you are listening to a track. If you limit your tracks to just 10 or even 40 and selected by most often played then you will always have a cool track playing. So click on "match the following rules", then in the boxes from left to right: My Rating, is, 5 stars.

Smart Playlist #2 When did I listen to that? If you own a large drive iPod some tracks can easily get forgotten and lost. Each track within your collection is tagged by how many plays that it has had. So you can set up a playlist to listen to the tracks that you have listened to once, or even never. So click on "match the following rules", then in the boxes from left to right: Play Count, is in this range, 0 to 1.

Smart Playlist #3 Podcasts and Audio Books Apart from tunes, the Smart List can bring together most things iPod related. If you have other files like Podcasts they can creep into your music playlists. So you can create a playlist specifically for them (storing it away in a subfolder of iTunes Source pane). You can use "playlist" "is not" Spoken word filter to stop speech getting into other playlists. So click on "match the following rules", then in the boxes from left to right: genre, is, Podcast. Then in the boxes underneath from left to right: genre, is, AudioBook. Then in the line underneath. Podcast, is true.

Smart Playlist #4 Music Store Back-Up. Keep your iTunes Music Store safe and sound by backing them up on CD. The best way of picking them out from your tracks is to make a Smart Playlist with the following rules: Click on "match the following rules", then in the boxes from left to right: Kind, contains, Protected AAC.

Smart Playlist #5 Unwanted Tracks You can easily get tracks that you dont like or want within your playlists. So setting up a playlist dedicated soley to tracks that you dont want to hear will also allow you to stop them appearing in future smart playlists. If you save this file as "dontwant" allows you to then select "playlist" "is not" "dontwant" on a future smart playlist. So click "match all of the following rules", then in the boxes from left to right: genre, contains, podcast. genre, contains, holiday. genre, contains, humour.

It is up to you what you want to exclude.

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