HOW TO Create a custom playlist in the Music app
1 GET STARTED WITH PLAYLISTS If you’ve migrated your music collection from an old version of iTunes, you should see your previous playlists in the sidebar. If you’re starting fresh with the Music app on macOS, there’ll be nothing to show.
2 CREATE YOUR FIRST PLAYLIST Assuming you have music in the Music app (if not, import it using File > Import), go to New > Playlist to create your first playlist. Name it, then press Return. Your new playlist will appear in the sidebar.
3 ADD SOME TRACKS Your first playlist will be empty. To add tracks to it, select Library > Songs from the sidebar. These will now appear in the right–hand pane. Select some tracks, then click and drag them on to your new playlist to add them to it.
4 CREATE SONG SELECTION Another way to create a quick and easy playlist is to simply select a number of tracks in the right–hand pane and then go to New > Playlist from Selection or use the Shift-Cmd-N keyboard shortcut. Give this playlist a name as before.
5 LET’S GET SMARTER A better way to create playlists is to use Smart Playlists (Opt-Cmd-N). These enable you to set rules for a playlist, which mean that the tracks within it conform to certain criteria – tracks created in the 1990s, say.
6 CREATE A BEST OF PLAYLIST Press Opt-Cmd-N , then select some criteria. Below “Match for the following rule” under Artist, choose Rating. In the next column, pick “is greater than,” then select the number of stars (three, say).
7 NOW GO FURTHER Your Best Of playlist should now contain all the tracks you’ve given four or five stars to – and the playlist will change as you continue to adjust ratings over time. To add further criteria, click the “+” on the right–hand side to add a new rule.
8 ADDING MORE OPTIONS Let’s add a second rule – choose Love from the first column, “is” from the second column and Loved from the third. Next, at the top change “Match all of the following rules” to “Match any of the following rules” using the drop-down.
9 REFINING YOUR RULES Your Best Of playlist now contains all your favorite tracks (the ones you have Loved and the ones you have given more than three stars to). However, it now also includes Christmas songs, which you don’t want. Let’s add a new rule.
10 EXCLUDE CERTAIN SONGS In the second row of rules in your playlist, click “+” again, only this time choose Genre from the first column, “is not” from the second column, then type the name of the genre you want to exclude – in this case, “Christmas.”
11 CARRY ON CUSTOMISING You can add as many rules as you wish to your smart playlist, although if you’re too picky it may end up empty – so choose with care. The “Limit to” rule is handy too – use it to limit the number of tracks in a playlist by size, genre, etc.
12 CHANGING THE RULES Once you’ve finished tweaking your playlist criteria, click the OK button. To change a playlist’s rules or other settings, simply Ctrl-click its name in the sidebar and choose an option from the drop– down menu that appears.