iPod and iTunes Hacks

Make a New iPod Playlist from Your Selections

Send selected tracks in iTunes straight to your iPod, and optionally create a new playlist to put them in.

iTunes has a convenient New Playlist From Selection command (available from the File menu) to create a new playlist from a bunch of selected tracks. The only drawback is that it creates the playlist in the current source. This AppleScript hack lets you select some tracks in iTunes and send them to your iPod, optionally placing them in a newly created playlist. It even suggests a default name for the new iPod playlist based on the info from the selected tracks.

The Code

This script gets the locationproperty of each selected iTunes track and uses it as the target of a duplicatecommand, copying the file to a mounted iPod. Additionally, a new iPod playlist can be created (named using the artist and album of the first selected iTunes track) to which the newly added iPod tracks can be copied.

    tell application "iTunes"

      -- is iPod mounted?
      try
        set iPodSource to some source whose kind is iPod
      on error
        display dialog "Unable to detect iPod." buttons {"Cancel"} ¬
          default button 1 with icon 2 giving up after 15
        return
      end try

      -- selected tracks must be from library
      if selection is not {} and ¬ (kind of container of view of front window) is library then set sel to get a reference to selection -- create a default name for new iPod playlist set suggestedPName ...