iPod and iTunes Hacks

Hacks 72–92

If you are a meticulous iTunes user, you probably spend a lot of time doing iTunes housekeeping tasks, such as tidying track names, arranging playlists just so, researching artist information, and moving tracks to your iPod.

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to spend so much time doing all those chores? The good news is, you don’t! Many of the repetitive tasks you now do by hand can be done much quicker with AppleScript, a programming language built into your Mac’s operating system.

“But I’m no computer programmer!” you say. Well, here’s more good news: you don’t have to be. AppleScript is not that difficult to learn and use. Yes, there is a learning curve, but the curve’s not as steep as learning, say, Perl or even JavaScript. Another bonus is that to use AppleScript with iTunes, you don’t have to learn every single thing about AppleScript. You only have to learn about the stuff that works with iTunes.

This chapter contains a brief introduction to AppleScripting and over 20 diverse and useful AppleScript hacks. Each script is ready to run; simply copy it into Script Editor and save it to your iTunes Scripts folder. Plus, each hack explains the routines in such a way that you’ll be able to reuse many of them in your own AppleScript scripts for iTunes.