How can I prevent certain tracks from going to iPod?

I manually put music onto my iPod by dragging albums over from the library in iTunes. For some albums, I don't want all of the tracks to copy over to the iPod - for example, audio commentaries and dialog tracks. Short of deleting these tracks from my iTunes library, how can I prevent specific tracks from being copied over to the iPod when I place albums?

Solution 1:

I love the setting where you can only sync songs with the checkbox to one or more iOS devices.

Simple deselect the songs by plalist, genre, or as you find them and even if they are in a playlist or genius mix that would normally install the song on your device during a sync, iTunes will suppress those songs that are not check marked.

Solution 2:

bmike's answer is correct; alternatively, you could select the album and hold ⌘ cmd while clicking the tracks you don't wish to copy. Then, drag the still-selected ones to the iPod.