How do YOU organize your iTunes library?

"I don't follow. Anytime I select an album to play from the browser the art work is there."

The artwork can be shown in the browser...about 2" x 2" on my 42" widescreen. My way fills up the entire screen with the album cover. I'd rather stare at a full-screen artwork shot than the iTunes interface any day.

"If you have the browser sorted "album by artist" all of the artists are there in alphabetical order. I don't see where having all of that duplicated by playlists is any easier, or really different for that matter."

It's WAY easier to navigate the playlists because when trying to scroll up and down by artist in the browser only 6 artists are shown at any given time(by default) unless you then drag the bottom half of iTunes down revealing more choices. My way shows playlists from the top of the iTunes GUI all the way down to the bottom. I easily see 40 playlists at once this way.

"How does having playlists by album help if you can't remember the title?"

Because I can type 3 letters of an artist's name that I have dozens of albums of and see all of the albums in alphabetical order...instantly.

Maybe I can make a short video of how I use iTunes to help show how this makes a whole bunch of sense to me.

"I can type 3 letters of an artist's name that I have dozens of albums of and see all of the albums in alphabetical order...instantly."

I can do that without playlists by
going to the iTunes search bar, choosing "Artist" in the pull down menu (next to the magnifying glass) and typing those same 3 letters in the iTunes box.

Once I select an album, I click on 'cover flow' view, and then go to the View menu and select "Full Screen".

When I want to view my playlists, I don't have 300-3000 playlists of albums to sort through, only a few dozen unique playlists that are themes or smart playlists.

To each his own.

With 450 GB of Lossless music and 4 years with iTunes under my belt I still have only made 3 playlists. Its just not how I listen. Coverflow, to me, is not useful either, especially with a large collection. I generally scroll (two finger drag) through the artists until I see one that I feel like listening to and listen to all or most of an album until I feel like something different. Occasionally, I scroll through the albums instead of artists.

When I know what I want to hear I go right to it via my artist list, it takes mere seconds. That's how I use iTunes.

I'm going to make this the last post as I realize I'm very much in the minority here but the previous methods simply do not work.

"I can do that without playlists by
going to the iTunes search bar, choosing "Artist" in the pull down menu (next to the magnifying glass) and typing those same 3 letters in the iTunes box. "

This doesn't work because the search results will include artists sharing the same attributes. For example I just tried to find the band Japancakes in my library using this method. I had to type all the way to Japanc before I got the correct results because I was also getting music from the bands Casino Versus Japan(which starts with the letter C) and the band Japan in my search results. By typing "jap" in my playlists I am able to view my desired album much quicker and just click on it.

"Once I select an album, I click on 'cover flow' view, and then go to the View menu and select "Full Screen"."

When using this method all the artwork for everything in your search results shows up. I only want to see the album cover for the album that I'm listening to. Sure I can get to a point using search where the album I want to listen to is listed but there will also be other albums listed until I filter it down a bit more. I'd need to filter it down to the exact album anyway because when the last song would finish it would just run on to whatever is sitting behind that track in the search results and I don't want that. I still think it's faster using my method. When I initially create my playlist I choose Cover Flow right then & there so it automatically shows the artwork when clicking on any playlist.

"When I want to view my playlists, I don't have 300-3000 playlists of albums to sort through, only a few dozen unique playlists that are themes or smart playlists."

There's a simple solution for this. I create playlists like you guys as well. I make Christmas and Halloween mixes. I make compilations of recent faves, etc. The way to organize them is to simply place the numeral "1" before the name of your playlist and they will be kept at the very top of your playlists. They won't get lost in my 3000 playlists.

One last advantage is syncing albums to an iPod. After plugging in your iPod all of your playlists are available to click and add to make adding albums a total breeze. I can whiz through all of my playlists clicking what I want to add then hit apply when I'm done and come back a few minutes later and I'm all done.

I'm off...I got more playlists to create :-)

You're right...to each his own

i only use playlists so i only include enough songs to store on my iphone, touch and ipods. for example, i setup a playlist called "4iphone" and move enough music in it that doesn't exceed 14gb. same goes for the other ipods. i mainly listen to 8 hours a day in random order. when i listen in my dedicated audio room, i use my iphone or touch to remotely control the itunes on my mac and the iphone/touch "remote" interface has a nice interface, search by artist, albums, genre, playlists, or randomize by artist, or whole music library.