How to Create Great Playlists with iTunes Genius

Use a song in your library to make a track list you'll love

Updated on December 13, 2019

The iTunes Genius feature can help you discover new music you haven't heard before, and it can use its smarts to create Genius Playlists for you. Genius Playlists are different from playlists you create and smart playlists iTunes generates based on sorting criteria you select. Genius Playlists use the collective intelligence of the iTunes Store and iTunes users to create playlists that automatically create sets of songs that will sound great. Here's how to create a Genius Playlist.

These instructions apply to iTunes 8 or higher.

How to Create a Genius Playlist

To make iTunes build a playlist for you, turn on the Genius feature. Once that's set up, choose a song to build the list around. Because every Genius Playlist is designed to put together songs that complement each other, start with a song that's the basis for iTunes to figure out what will sound good with it.

Navigate through your iTunes library to a song that you want to use as the foundation of the playlist. Once you've found that song, you have three ways to create the Genius Playlist:
- Right-click the song, go to Genius Suggestions, then select Save as Playlist.
- Click the ... icon next to the song, go to Genius Suggestions, then choose Save as Playlist
- Go to the File menu, select New, then choose Genius Playlist.
iTunes takes the song you selected and collects information from the iTunes Store and other Genius users. It looks at what other songs are popular with people who like the song you chose and uses that information to generate the Genius Playlist.

The standard Genius Playlist has 25 songs, beginning with the song you chose. You can either play it right away and see how you like it or make changes to it.
Select the 25 songs drop-down arrow (it's located under the playlist name) and choose 50 Songs, 75 Songs, or 100 Songs to expand the playlist.
Select Refresh to add a new set of songs to the playlist. Some songs will have been in the last version, some will be new, and the order (other than the first song) will be different.
Select Shuffle All to play the playlist in random order.

Drag and drop tracks to change the default order of the playlist.
Your next step depends on what version of iTunes you have. In iTunes 10 or earlier, if you're happy with the playlist, select Save Playlist. In iTunes 11 or higher, the playlist saves automatically and appears under the Music Playlists heading in the left menu.

Genius playlists have the atom-shaped Genius logo next to them and have the same name as the song you used to create them.
Repeat these steps with any song in your library to make as many playlists as you want.