Here's a simple solution to the difficult task of finding tracks in your iTunes library that are not listed on any playlist...
Playlists in iTunes are a convenient way of classifying music to suit a particular mood or style. With a large music library it becomes difficult to keep track of those songs assigned to a playlist and those not. If they aren't in a playlist there is the risk they will become forgotten orphans, destined never to be heard again. The Mac 911 Weblog offers the following suggestion:
... open each of your playlists, select everything in them, press Command-I to bring up the Multiple Song Information window, and enter something that will identify songs that you want to keep - a five star rating or 'keeper' in the comments field, for example.
Once you've tagged all the songs in all your playlists, sort your library by that tag and delete anything in the library that doesn't bear the tag.
Do this and you may "re-discover" tracks you thought that you'd somehow lost. So simple, it's a solution that deserves to be blogged!
Update 21.06.05: The logical next step. You've assigned every track in a playlist a rating—even 1 star to acknowledge they exist. You import new tracks from various CDs in your collection which, by default, have no rating. How do you get a list of these tracks so you can assign them to a playlist? By using a Smart Playlist like this:
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