How to exclude songs or albums from playing when using shuffle in the iOS Music app

If have a lot of music on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, using the shuffle feature can be a great way to listen to a random selection of music. Unfortunately, it comes at a price if you have content that you just wouldn’t want to listen to. For example, I have a couple of albums with children’s nursery rhymes and also some Christmas songs. Every time I select shuffle and begin to relax, without fail t plays one of the nursery rhymes and drives me mad.

Well, if all of your music is stored on your Mac or Windows PC in iTunes, there is a very easy way to tell your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to leave certain tracks or albums completely out of the shuffle list.

1. Open ITunes.
2. Click on the Music Tab.
3. Scroll to find the album or track you wish to omit from any future shuffle.
4. If it’s a single track simply right click on it.
5. If it’s a full album, click on the first track, hold down the shift key, and then click on the last song. That should highlight all the tracks in the album.
6. Right click with your mouse and select Get Info.
7. Click on the Options tab.
8. Look down and you will see a tick box and a drop down menu next to the heading Skip when shuffling.
9. Click the box and then change the drop down menu to Yes.
10. Hit OK.
11. Sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iTunes.

That is all there is to it. The attributes will have been transferred to your iOS device and those chosen tracks or albums will no longer play during a shuffle. If you use iTunes Match, iTunes should automatically update to iCloud and all your devices should automatically be updated with the attributes.

This has been a feature that has gone under my radar for quite some time but it is a really nice tip to know. Now I no longer need to listen to nursery rhymes when all I want is some AC/DC!

Note: There is also the checkbox immediately to the left of song titles in iTunes, that can cause iTunes on Mac or PC to exclude a song from shuffling. However, it also does other things, and in general doesn't seem to govern how a song reacts to shuffling on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The method above has proven more reliable for that specific purpose.

Anyone else have any tips or tricks for better controlling what does or does not get shuffled?