In a recent discussion with a friend, said friend mentioned that he’d duplicated his iTunes library onto his laptop and wasn’t looking forward to recreating his many playlists.
“Say what?” said I.
“I’ve spent a lot of time creating my playlists and it’s a drag that I have to recreate them.”
“But you don’t,” I proclaimed. “iTunes offers a function for easily moving playlists from one computer to another.”
“And how’s that, smart guy?”
“Like so,” I replied.
Simply launch iTunes and choose File -> Export Library. The resulting dialog box offers to save an XML file called Library.xml. This file does not contain any media — no music or movies, for example — but rather data that lists the names of your smart and not-so-smart playlists as well as information about what those playlists contain (track titles, for instance).
Copy this file to your other computer, launch iTunes on that computer, and choose File -> Import. In the dialog box that appears, navigate to the .xml file you just copied, select it, and click Choose. In short order, all the playlists contained in that .xml file will appear in iTunes’ Source list.
“Hang on,” he interrupted, “what if the items in the playlists don’t match the contents of my iTunes library? Suppose, for example, that I’ve added only a subset of my music to the laptop’s music library? Will the playlist include loads of entries with a question mark next to them?”
“No worries,” I said in my best fake Aussie accent. “The playlists will still appear in the iTunes Source list, but if items in the playlist aren’t part of that computer’s iTunes library, they won’t be listed.”
“Okay, but…” he began.
“Let me stop you right there. If you want to export just a single playlist, select that playlist in the iTunes Source list, choose File -> Export, and in the resulting dialog box choose XML from the Format pop-up menu and click Save.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. On a completely different subject, how do you feel about The Weepies’ “ World Spins Madly On ?”
“It’s a wonderful tune that I thought was used very effectively in an early episode of The Riches. If you haven’t heard it beyond the iTunes preview, you should. The Riches is worth a look too. ”