Feeling less than literate? Eyes tired of all those “words” and “letters”? Me too, so I made a screencast that you can jump to now.

In this article I’ll be showing you how to easily clear your library of unwanted tracks using a custom Applescript and Quicksilver trigger.

Like many of you, I’m a keyboard junkie. I listen to music all day and I’m constantly switching between shuffled and non-shuffled play, skipping tracks and repeating them all without lifting my hands from the keyboard. There are a lot of apps that do this but I am partial to Quicksilver’s iTunes plugin when used with key-combo triggers. I’m not going to explain how to set this up (see MacApper for a nice run down similar to the basics of what I’ll describe here).

The heart of my system: the cursor keys which I have set to trigger core iTunes functions:

  • Control-Option Right Arrow : Next track
  • Control-Option Left Arrow: Previous Track
  • Control Option Up: Toggle Shuffle On/Off
  • Control Option Down: Play-Pause toggle

My tips in this brief series will focus on some additional scripts that aren’t included with the QS iTunes plugin. These, along with my preferred key-combos, are:

  • Control Option Delete: Vaporize Track
  • Control Option Enter: Add to Monthly Playlist

Let’s start with the dangerous one: vaporize.

Part 1: Vaporize the Unwanted

I don’t know about you, but I have about 30% pure crap in my iTunes library. Why? My taste has changed. Many were tracks from discs I inherited during otherwise amicable breakups (mostly amicable, other than the time I had a bottle of Campari thrown at me, a story I save for another time). A lot seem to have SXSW in the album name (a majority of SXSW tracks seem to be “dude, awesome song”, many are “nice effort” but more than one are “please stop now”).

I know, I know. Hard disk space is cheap. Why delete these songs? This, to me, is indicative of the “I might someday, sometime have use for a broken stapler/ipod/toothbrush” mentality that leads to accumulating CRAP in one’s business or domicile. In short: get rid of stuff you don’t need.

For a long time, mind you, my thought process was something like “well, so-and-so *really likes* that song so I’ll leave it on here in case I, like, need to make them a mix” or “that client likes that track and always wants me to play it during a shoot”. Now my attitude is: if I don’t like it, if I don’t listen to it, I get rid of it. I have 60GB of tracks (which is much smaller than many of you, I suspect) and I want to get rid of everything I don’t at least like (heck, I’d even settle for “tolerate”).

The problem? The effort required to stop what I’m working on, switch over to iTunes, delete the track, confirm the delete, and then play the next song is significantly higher than the effort to skip to the next track. Guess what I ended up doing most of the time? RIght. Next, please.

So I whipped up my Vaporize Current Track script.

WARNING: This track is the equivalent of a couple of bar bouncers that identify an unruly patron and forcibly and immediately escort him from the premises. It doesn’t ask. It just does. It will tell you what it’s done, of course. If you do have a change of heart, you can find the unwanted track laying face down in the gutter that is the Mac OSX trash.

Let’s watch it in action

Kinkless iTunes - Vaporize Current Track

To install

  1. Install Growl if you don’t have it. If you don’t have Growl installed you may get some errors. I haven’t tested on a non-Growled system. I’m a one machine man now. Technology monogamy has benefits.
  2. Download the Vaporize Current Track script. Easiest to save it to the ~/LIbrary/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions directory (I actually save it in a centralized Scripts directory in my ~/Archive folder. You can save it anywhere if you feel comfortable setting up QS to find custom scripts for triggers.)
  3. You may want to quit and relaunch QS so that it looks at the Actions folder again and sees the new script.
  4. Set up a trigger for the new script in Quicksilver. I like “Control-Option-Delete”. I’ve found that current builds of QS sometimes have problems with newly created triggers. Again, a relaunch of QS seems to fix this.

To use:

  1. Listen to music.
  2. Find song you really really really don’t like
  3. Trigger.
  4. Sigh with relief.

Improve it:

If you’re game, I’d love to hear how you improve on this script. Best improvements can be rolled back into it for a revised release later.

Up next: Kinkless Tunes & Monthly Moods