Keeping songs in your library but keeping them off the Zune

[Anachostic]

Keeping songs in your library but keeping them off the Zune

Surprisingly or not, the ability to have a subset of your library transferred to your Zune is entirely
possible. Surprisingly or not, this feature is impossibly hidden and would only be found by those looking
for it. The procedure itself is actually quite simple and once discovered, can lead to greater control over
your library. This is for users using automatic sync. Those of you doing manual sync, you should be able
to handle what is and what is not on your Zune.

It all comes down to playlists. But before we start, we need to prep some things.

The easy part: decide what songs/photos/videos you want to exclude from your Zune. For this example,
I am going to exclude one album: Asia – Alpha.

Set up the Zune software to allow us to (not so) easily flag the songs for non-transfer.
Starting from the screen below, right-click the column header and choose Choose Columns.





Check the checkbox for Custom 1. I moved it up in the list to make editing (and screenshots) easier.



Now the window looks like this:



Now, define a word or phrase to identify songs that get excluded. In this example, I am using “Do not Sync”.
For each song, right-click in the Custom 1
field area and choose Edit. Enter the identifying word/phrase.
When done, it should look like:



Next, set up a playlist that excludes any songs with the “Do not Sync” flag. Right-click
Playlists and choose
Create Auto Playlist. Give the auto playlist a descriptive title. I chose “Syncable Songs”.



Click the Add criteria under Music in my library. Choose More…
at the end of the list. An extended list of
fields will appear. Choose Custom Field #1 and click OK.



Change Contains to Does not Contain and enter the identifying word/phrase (in my example, Do not Sync).
The criteria should look like this:



Click OK

Switch to the Sync pane on the right side of the Zune software. Click Sync Options> (Your Zune)> Set up Sync…
A new window appears to configure the files to sync to the Zune.





Remove the All Music playlist and add the Syncable Songs
playlist. Change the sync priority order as desired.



Click Finish and your Zune will resync with the new songs. In this example, the songs from Asia – Alpha were removed.



You can do this technique with Photos and Videos. The Custom fields are not stored in your files, they are only in your
library database.

The Auto Playlist is similar to what I hear ITunes users call Smart Playlists. Although the feature is hidden, it is
there and reduces the perceived gap between ITunes and Zune software functionality.

[CameleonMK]

I'm sure this will be very useful for some people.

[anotha knick]

ok, I'm having a problem, and I know it may be something very easy or elementary to fix, but when I do step 1 (right click on the header bar to get the columns) instead of getting all the options you do, I only get four (album artist, count, length, rating)

How do I fix this?

[anotha knick]

nvm, I noticed the header bar is not the one at the top, (where I assumed it should be,) but rather on the left hand side. Thanks.

[Stuart]

nice find

[Skinnylittleman]

Thanks for this!

[BlagRipper]

That's pretty rough when you have 25k + songs.

[Anachostic]

You can highlight multiple songs with shift and ctrl before you right-click>edit, if that helps you.

[Anachostic]

This is no longer relevant to the new Zune 2 software. It should be unsticked and closed.