I have Christmas music on my iPhone. (I know, it’s April.) When I am in shuffle mode for all my music, it plays. How do I stop iTunes from playing that category, but playing all the rest?
The iTunes software includes a setting that allows you to skip selected tracks when the program is in shuffle mode. To use the feature with the Music library in recent versions of iTunes, click the names to select the genre (like Holiday or Christmas), songs or albums you want to exclude. Go to the File menu and choose Get Info; you can also press Ctrl+I or Command-I on the keyboard.
If asked, confirm that you would like to edit multiple items. Click the Options tab in the Get Info box, turn on the checkbox next to “Skip when shuffling” and set the drop-down menu to Yes. Click the O.K. button. The next time you sync the iPhone with iTunes, the new settings should copy over to take the holiday tunes out of the shuffle rotation there as well. Reverse the process next Thanksgiving to restore your holiday tunes to the lineup.