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Create Your Own Playlists

A playlist is your customized collection of audio files. You can create as many playlists as you like, and you can arrange the songs in any order you prefer by dragging selections up or down in the list. You create playlists so you can play custom collections of songs on your computer, download them to a portable MP3 player, or burn them onto CDs.

When you create a new playlist, iTunes assumes you'll want to change its name so it highlights the text for you. Just type to replace the existing text.

Create a new playlist and add songs to it

To add selections to the playlist from a CD

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When you drag a song directly from a CD to a playlist, the song is automatically encoded (imported) to the AAC format, or whatever format you last chose in the Importing preferences pane. The song is placed in the iTunes Library and added to the playlist.

To add a song to a playlist from the Library

There's another method for creating a new playlist that's even easier:

You can drag multiple selections all at once to a playlist:

• To make a contiguous selection of songs (songs that are next to each other in the list), Shift-click the song names.

  Or single-click on one song, then Shift-click on another song: all songs between the two clicks will be selected.

• To make a non-contiguous selection of songs (songs that are not next to each other in the list), click a song, then Command-click additional song names you want to add to the selection.

This example shows a non-contiguous selection of songs.

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Smart Playlists

Smart Playlists are collections of songs that are generated automatically when imported songs meet certain conditions that you define. iTunes provides several Smart Playlists (indicated by the gear symbols) in the Source pane: '60s Music, '90s Music, Top Rated, Recently Played, and Top 25 Most Played. You can create new Smart Playlists that meet other conditions, such as your favorite Hawaiian songs, flamenco music, or certain artists.

Smart Playlists display a gear symbol.

To create a new Smart Playlist

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A new Smart Playlist appears in the Source pane (shown above-right). Any songs in your Library that meet the conditions you set are now listed in the "Song Name" column of the Detail window. Rename the playlist something descriptive.