Do you know of any program that (or iTunes etc plugin) for Mac that helps me trim my MP3 colllection?

iTunes can do that.

—

My opinion: I don’t consider <space>, <Delete>, <Enter>, <M> to be a lot of “key combinations”.

So here goes…

—

1. Bring up your library of music – not a playlist.
2. Select the first song with your mouse.
3. Hit <space> to start playing the song.
4. Don’t like it, hit the <Delete> key.
5. A dialog pops up asking if you’re sure, hit <Enter>.
6. A second dialog asks how to delete, hit <M> to move it to the trash.
7. Hit <space> to start playing the next song.

If you like the current song then:
1–3. Same as above.
4. Hit <↓> to select the next song.
5. Hit <space> to start playing that song.

—

There’s no automatic 45 second timing interval in that scenario. But I’d think this way would be better. You can proceed as fast or as slow as you want.

—

If you accidentally delete something, simply pull it out of the trash and then drag it back to your iTunes library for re-import.

Thanks for your contribution. But believe me for me it is indeed a lot to combine all those keys. Especially if I don’t want to be dedicated only to that (ideally I could be doing anything else and then go doing without worrying too much)

I am now wondering if AppleScript would be an interesting path. Not that I know any of it, and not that I know if iTunes is scriptable. But I might as well ask : -)

It would be faster to simply go through your library assigning a rating to all of the songs. When you have finished, bulk delete all the songs that you didn’t like enough to rate. You can also sort by year or date added to the library and probably load more of the older, less popular ones up first that way.

You can certainly make a script to play each song for a predetermined length of time, but you will still need to manually intervene. No script can decide whether you like a song or not. You can speed the process up by selecting whole albums or all songs from one singer or group, and bulk assess them.

You could use AutoRate to rank all your songs. It is surprisingly good. And then use applescript to delete the ones with one or two stars.

Or use a smart playlist. Sometimes I over think things.

@johnpowell You could use AutoRate to rank all your songs.

AutoRate is terrible. It relies on play counts and unless you are the only person using your library and you never use any of the random modes it cannot come close to rating properly.

@DarkScribe :: Well, obviously that is how it does it. Can you come up with a better solution? If you never listen to the song it doesn’t get rated. I usually select a song, I never really use random mode. I have 18K songs, I wouldn’t want to sample each one.

Found this AppleScript:

—
on deleteTrack(trackName)
tell application “iTunes”
set theTrack to track named trackName of playlist “Library”
set songFile to location of theTrack
delete theTrack
end tell
tell application “Finder” to delete songFile
end deleteTrack

on run
deleteTrack(“delete_this_track”)—Change delete_this_track to the name of the track
end run
—

I suppose you could setup a hot-key combo to execute it whenever you want.

—

[Update]: Whoops. Looks like an incomplete example (see bolded line). Maybe it’ll set you down the right track, though. :-\

@johnpowell I usually select a song, I never really use random mode. I have 18K songs, I wouldn’t want to sample each one.

I have a little more than 25K at the moment, but they in more than twenty Playlists, and all are rated, I rate songs as I add them. I will select a playlist and play it randomly as teh same sequence eventually gets a little boring. If I use Autorate (I have played with it) it will change my ratings in a way that I do not agree with. Also, like many people living in a family situation, often I will play songs for other family members that I do not regard favourably. That will go onto the mix. My iTunes plays at least sixteen hours per day, 24/7 as it streams music to my phone when I am away.