Intro

Automatically update your Apple Music playlists with new songs from other playlists (I.e., Apple Music curated playlists or a friends playlist).

Features

• Automatically update playlists with songs from other playlists (I.e. curated playlists)
• Runs completely in the background, no user interaction needed
• Able to run from Automations unobtrusively (I.e., when connected to CarPlay, run Update Playlists)
• Supports updating multiple playlists, from multiple playlists
• Ban specific songs, by title, from ever being added (about halfway thru the shortcut is a comment and list to add banned songs)

What it is

Playlist Updater is a shortcut that I’ve created and used myself for over a year now, although only recently have I finally updated it to support multiple playlists, and gotten it ready for release. The original intention was simply to keep adding an Apple curated playlist to my own without adding duplicate songs, so that my playlist always had new music but also kept the old music as well. This can be used to update off of any other playlist added to your library tho, such as a friends playlist, not just Apple ones.

How it works

Playlist Updater scans your “local” playlist (the playlist you want to update / add music to), and then scans the other playlist (Apple playlist or another curated or friends playlist) for any songs not in your local playlist, and then simply adds them for you.

The shortcut is fully automated with no user interaction once it’s set-up, in order to avoid pulling you into the shortcuts app when it’s running. This means it can be run from automations without ever bringing you into the app and forcing you to wait for it to finish.

Set-Up

Everything is contained directly in the shortcut and controlled by a master dictionary at the start. The dictionary will ask to be configured when you first import the shortcut, but can be modified easily afterwards to add or change playlists.

The layout of the main dictionary may seem a bit complex at first but it’s simple once you comprehend it. Each entry to the dictionary should be another dictionary entry, with the key being an easily recognized name for yourself, and then two sub-entries in each of those dictionaries, one text with key “local” (and the value as the Case-Sensitive name of your playlist you want to update), and one text OR array with key “apple”. If you’re only pulling songs from one playlist, leaving it as a text will work. If you wish to pull songs from multiple playlists into your playlist, setting it as an array and then adding each playlist in that array will work.

Example Dictionary:

{ "example" : {

  "local" : "my playlist",

  "apple" : [

     "Festival Bangers",
     "danceXL"

] },

"anotherone" : {

  "apple" : "Today's Hits",

  "local" : "Pop Hits!"

} }