Apple’s Smart Lists are now pervasive, present in nearly every single one of Apple’s applications. Merlin pointed out how to use a specially crafted smart list to find all the empty Address Book entries you have kicking around (and likely never use). From time to time, tips like these surface. Today it occurred to me that there are interesting combinations that you or I may use that don’t occur to others.
I personally use them most in Mail.app. Thus far I have Attachements, Flagged, Recent Tips (I file tip emails I get here and filter to show only those from the last three days), Recently Viewed (email I’ve looked at in the last three days, I think Daniel Jalkut clued me into this idea), and Unread (to help find all those emails I auto sort).
I use smart playlists in iTunes to separate out the various ratings of media, songs I haven’t yet rated, songs I haven’t yet listened to, and finally one with a few custom tweaks to fill up my shuffle with stuff I want.
My neglected Finder has no smart folders because I avoid the Finder like the plague. I just don’t like to do file management. I try to let the appropriate application manage them behind the scenes for me, which is clearly what Apple intends for us to do (just look at the way iTunes and iPhoto work). As such, I’m clearly missing the boat there and I’m probably missing the boat elsewhere (I actually do use Address Book groups to find people that work at a few select companies).
Put your favorite smart group/list/folder/playlist in the comments.
I have waaaay too many Smart Playlists in iTunes... but they do come in very handy.
Smart Lists are great, but their interface inconsistencies between applications drives me nuts.
Plug: I have ranted about this on my blog.
I use a couple smart lists myself. Mainly for my iPhone, to keep the clutter down. I keep a smart list in iTunes of my recently purchased music (the last 16 weeks) and sync that with the iPhone. That keeps a fresh mix of about 200 songs on the iPhone to listen to as I'm out and about. I don't use it that much as an iPod, so it fulfills its purpose. My other one is similar, but for iPhoto. I keep a smart list of my last so many rolls (I forget the exact number) and sync that to the iPhone. That keeps around the last 400-500 pictures I took.
Speaking of the smart list on 43 folders, I tried that one last night hoping to weed out a couple records, but alas, that smart list is empty. I kept it though. Just in case. Maybe something will pop in there. I only have around 275 contacts in my address book.
In Mail.app
Old Sent:
Message is in Mailbox Sent
Date Received is not in the last 30 days
(Check include messages in sent).
Gives me a view of all the old mail I've sent, so I can at least try to comply with my company's document retention policy.
I actually select the top level "Sent" folder, and it aggregates across all three of my work accounts (don't ask me why).
I have a similar rule for my "Reference" folder.
iTunes:
Not Skipped
Last Skipped is not in the last 2 weeks
Last Played is not in the last 3 weeks
Kind does not include video.
I use this for my party shuffle source.
I have folders for my smart playlists. Some folders are used for playing music, some are for maintaining my library. For maintaining my library I'll have things like:
Songs to Rate: Star rating is less than 1
Songs to tag: "artist" field (or other) is false, kind is audio
Songs to delete?:
Rating is 1 or less stars, skip count is >5, kind is audio. (Select all results from this playlist and mass edit the tags to change title to "delete me" which is easily selected from library view later for deletion from HD and not just itunes)
My smart playlist wishlist:
cover art presence is true or false!!!