How to Create a Playlist on iPhone

The iPhone is a fully functional iPod with all the features that people have come to expect from this landmark portable media device. Instead of listening to albums all the way through or picking out songs one by one many users prefer to create different playlists from their iTunes library. These can be for things like working out at the gym or listening to at the bus, even for more abstract themes. You can do this on your iPhone without connecting to your computer, but this is often awkward and not the easiest way of doing things. Creating playlists on your computer's iTunes and syncing them to your iPhone is a standard part of using the device, and here is an easy guide to doing this.

You start by opening your iTunes and looking at what you have in your library. Go to File and select New Playlist, or just hit Command and N. A new playlist window will come up and you will be asked to name your playlist, which will be highlighted and listed with the other iTunes playlists in the left hand panel under the Playlists heading. Go back into Music in iTunes and begin finding the songs you want to add to the playlist you just created. Control click, or right click if your Apple mouse permits, the song you want to add and go down to Add to Playlist. Here you can just select the playlist you created. Do this with different songs until you get the playlist you want to add to your iPhone.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer and then select it from the Devices heading in the left hand panel. Go into it and make sure that when you sync your iPhone to iTunes that it syncs your playlists as well. It usually will automatically, but settings can get changed casually. Then go ahead and sync your iPhone to iTunes as you would normally.

Once you are done you can easily find and use the playlist on your iPhone. Select iPod from your iPhone's bottom task bar, and once in there find and press More. This will be on the far right hand side of the task bar, right next to Video. Find Playlists from the menu, which is under Genres and above Podcasts. When you select this you will have your list of iPhone playlists you have synced, which will be both the ones that are automatically generated by iTunes and the one that you created. This process is almost identical for the iPod Touch.