How to fix the not so random shuffle in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone
I love my iThings, but one thing really really really annoys me when listening to music on my iPod or on my computer via iTunes and that is the random shuffle function! Why? Because it simply doesn’t shuffle randomly…
The Problem
You have a couple of thousand songs and have set random shuffle in iTunes yet after a while you keep hearing the same songs over and over again!
The Explanation
Apple uses something called a smart play list, which in principle is a cool idea. Your iPod or iTunes keeps a count of how often you listen to a song and how often you skip a song and adapts its random shuffle accordingly so you keep hearing songs you “like” more often and songs you keep skipping get removed from the random shuffle. After a while however you will only hear the same songs again and again even though you have thousands of titles in your library.
The Solution
There are several solutions to this problem:
- Use your own play lists and don’t random shuffle- duh!
- Use smart play lists – select not played in the last 2 days or something similar
or really solve the problem and - Reset the counters!
Simply select all your songs (shortcut: ctrl+a / command+a) and then right-click on a selected title. In the context menu that pops up then select “Reset Play Count” and “Reset Skip Count” and you’re done!
If you did this in your music library don’t forget to sync your device, you can also do this straight on your pod or phone when it is connected…
Reset Counters in iTunes
In my opinion this really “resets” the random shuffle to as random as it gets, you need to repeat this little trick occasionally to keep it random…
Any one else have any decent solutions to this problem? Please let me know…
Happy Shuffling! ;)
I just made a smart playlist that only grabs songs that are at 0 plays. I have been struggling with this for a long time. I have thousands of songs and I would always hear the same ones.
I like your suggestion to reset the playcount. who needs that anyways.
If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, try True Shuffle ( http://bratton.com/trueshuffle/ ) Listen to all your songs, with no repeats ever! :-)
When I use shuffle on iTunes or my iPod, it clumps together all the songs of a band. It’s always the same band, too. Is this a problem with the files themselves, or in fact, with the shuffle?
Hi Nathan,
The random suffle on the iPod is just really weird and doesn’t quite work imho. Read a great article about it here: http://www.cnet.com.au/itunes-just-how-random-is-random-339274094.htm
You might want to try genius playlists and see if they help you solve your problem. If you find any other good solution please let me know…
Cheers, Cliff.