Sure, iTunes’ new Genius function does a fine job of maintaining a groove. But iTunes has been packing powerful tune-wrangling features for years, in the form of Smart Playlists. You’ve probably noticed those purple playlists included in every fresh installation—’90s Music, Top 25 Most Played, and so on. But we’ll bet many of you haven’t explored the power of these dynamic wonders.

What you need: iTunes (free, www.apple.com), Your well-worn music collection, A willingness to experiment

1. Lost Songs

Apple’s secret algorithms can make you a Genius Playlist with one click, but a well-setup Smart Playlist knows your exact tastes.

Feel like you’ve been in a musical rut lately? Time to dig out some old favorites. Start by choosing File > New Smart Playlist. For the first rule, choose Last Played in the first drop-down, and Is Not In The Last for the second, and enter in a time in the final field. (We find six months is a good cutoff date.)

Now click the plus-sign button to bring up another rule (leave the default “Match all of the following rules” intact). Set this one the same as the last, except use Last Skipped in the first drop-down, instead of Last Played. This will ensure the list won’t be populated with songs that have been annoying you lately. 

2. Ratings on Board

These songs are in our top 100 most played, but their ratings are three stars or lower—maybe we’ve underrated them.

Uh oh. Did that last playlist turn up a woefully small selection of tunes? Looks like you’ve been lax with your ratings. We can help you with that: Just create a new Smart Playlist with a single rule: Rating ~ Is ~ zero stars. That’ll give you a list of unrated tracks you can review at your leisure.

But perhaps the problem is that you’re just not as fond of those old tunes as you once were. Let’s pull up songs that may be rated higher than they should. Create a playlist with these rules: Rating ~ Is Greater Than ~ three stars; Last Played ~ Is Not In The Last ~ six months; Play Count ~ Is Less Than ~ five; and Skip Count ~ Is Greater Than ~ two. You can tweak the numbers depending on your listening habits, but you get the idea.

It’s even simpler to dig up songs that may deserve higher ratings. First, edit that Top 25 Most Played list (one of iTunes’ default Smart Playlists) to include 100 or more items rather than the default 25. To do this, right-click the playlist and choose Edit Smart Playlist. Now create a new Smart Playlist with two rules: Rating ~ Is Less Than ~ four stars and Playlist ~ Is ~ [your new Most Played]. This’ll also bring up any oft-heard but unrated tunes; if you’d rather leave those off, simply add one more rule: Rating ~ Is Not ~ zero stars. 

3. Blacklisted!

We tend to skip these a lot, and they’re rated just two or one stars…yeah, this is the blacklist.

Now that you’ve seen how Smart Playlists can call on other lists, let’s build a playlist of songs to avoid. It involves three rules: Rating ~ Is Less Than ~ three stars; Rating ~ Is Not ~ zero stars; and Skip Count ~ Is Greater Than ~ five. You can tweak to match your tastes, but the idea is to collect all the songs you consistently avoid.

This is more useful than it appears, and here’s why: For any new playlist, you can now set a rule that says Playlist ~ Is Not ~ [your blacklist]. Instant access to hours of crap-free listening! 

4. Get This Party Started

Here’s the music we’re inviting to our party—nothing New Age, all three stars or more, and no podcasts, please.

In fact, let’s try that right now. Handpicking just the right mix of music for parties can be an unrewarding hassle. Better to set up a Smart Playlist to grab party-friendly tracks. This can be as detailed as you like, but you’ll want at least three important rules: Playlist ~ Is ~ Music will make sure no podcasts or videos pop up. Playlist ~ Is Not ~ [your blacklist] will knock out the true stinkers. And Rating ~ Is Greater Than ~ two stars ensures the music selected is at least pretty good.

From there, you can add as many variables to exclude or include as you’d like. Take a look at the screenshot for some suggestions. 

5. Get Obsessive

Stick “autumn” in the comments of albums that make you think of a fall day. Then make a killer Smart Playlist from them, and go walk through some leaves.

You can do a lot with variations on these suggestions, but if you want to get really hardcore about it, you’ll want to dive deeper into your music’s metadata. Select a song (or group of songs) and choose File > Get Info. In this dialog box is a comment field, where you can label your tracks by mood, by season, by subgenre...anything you like. With well-planned comments in place, you can create Smart Playlists that draw on only songs with specific comments—and easily slot any new albums into multiple playlists, just by adding comments.

Ensuring your iTunes library is appropriately rated, sorted, and labeled may seem like an unnecessary chore. But setting aside the time to do it right, just once, will guarantee that your vast music collection is actually, you know, listened to. That is, after all, what it’s for.