Enabling half-star ratings in iTunes

There's a great little tip in the latest print issue (17.05) of Wired magazine. In Cheat Codes for Everyday Life they list a great little terminal hack that enables you to give songs in your iTunes library "half-star" rating.

To enable half-star ratings open Terminal type (or copy and paste) the following command and press enter. iTunes must be closed:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

By default iTunes tracks can only be assigned zero to five star ratings in whole star increments. While it's not a new tip, it's very effective for people that rate their music and have a tough time deciding between three or four stars for a given track (like me).

If you're not currently a user of the iTunes rating system I recommend that you give it a try. It's highly useful for creating smart playlists for things like "4-star 80s" for example.

Image: courtesy TUAW

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