Use Song Ratings in iTunes to Organize Your Music

The star rating feature in iTunes (and other software media players) is a great tool for organizing your music library. This can enable you to view your songs by star ranking order, select specific star rated songs to sync with your iPhone (or other Apple device), or even create Smart Playlists that update themselves as you build up your iTunes library.

How to Use Star Ratings in iTunes

To see how to organize your iTunes library into star-rated playlists, read the tutorial below which shows you the steps needed to create a Smart Playlist that automatically updates itself. This tutorial also assumes that you have already rated your library using the star facility for albums and songs.

1. To create a Smart Playlist, click the File menu tab at the top of the iTunes screen and select New > Smart Playlist... from the options list.
2. On the Smart Playlist configuration screen you will see options to filter the contents of your iTunes library based on a number of variables. To create a Smart Playlist based on song ratings, click the first drop-down menu and choose Rating.
3. Click the second drop-down menu and select Is if not already displayed.
4. Choose a star rating to sort songs. For example, if you want to organize all your 5-star songs into a playlist, then make sure the star rating is 5.
5. Ensure the Live Updating option is enabled and then click OK.
6. Type in a name for your new Smart Playlist and hit the Enter key. You'll now see in the left pane that a new playlist has been created with the name you just entered.
7. To check that songs with the star rating you specified in step 4 have been added, click on the new Smart Playlist. You should see a list of tracks with the correct star rating. This list will automatically be updated as your music library changes.

To create further playlists based on star ratings, simply follow the steps above.