How to Create a Playlist

Plex allows you to organize your media into multiple playlists. Playlists can contain videos, music, or photos and are available from any device once they are created.

Creating a playlist is easy once you know how. The playlist feature, though, is not easy to find as it is hidden behind menus.

You can use the steps provided below to add an item to a playlist to have the playlist created.

Notes on playlists

Before creating our playlist, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding playlists in Plex.

• Playlists are created for each user. When a Plex user creates a playlist, that playlist is only available to that user. Playlists can't be shared between users, so each user will have their own playlists.
• Playlists can only contain one type of media. A playlist cannot contain multiple types of media. Each playlist can only contain video, music, or photos.
• Playlists can contain media items from multiple libraries. You can add items from multiple libraries to the same playlist, provided the items are the same type. For example, you can add movies from different libraries to the same playlist.

With the above points in mind let's look at creating a playlist.

How to create a playlist

Any Plex media play allows a user to create a playlist. Each player will have a different user interface, so the steps may be different than the ones outlined below.

The following steps will explain how to create a playlist using the Plex Web app:

1. Log into your Plex server as an administrator, and then click on the media item you would like to add to the playlist. Click on the More button (the three dots) to bring up the menu.

   

2. Click the Add to option from the menu and then select Add to Playlist.

   

3. In the Add to Playlist dialog, enter the name of the playlist and then click the Create button.

   

There is no confirmation that the playlist has been created, however, if you click the Playlists option from the menu on the left, you will see your new playlist.

At the top of a library, there is a Playlist option there, as well. Clicking that option will bring up a list of playlists for that library and your new playlist should be displayed there.

To add more items, you would repeat the above steps. Since you just created the playlist, it should appear in the menu under the Recent option of the menu, so you can just select that playlist from the list.

How to create a playlist using the API

Using the Plex Web app is one way of creating a playlist. You can also use any of the Plex media players to create playlists.

If you would like to script or develop an application that creates a playlist you can use the Plex API. There is a Create Playlist API command that you can use to programmatically create a playlist for a user.

The same principles outlined in the first section above apply when using the API. If you try to create a playlist containing multiple different media types, you will end up creating one playlist with the same name for each media type instead of one playlist.

Also, the user associated with the Plex token you use to create the playlist using the API will have the playlist associated with that user.

The above sections provided a description of a playlist in Plex and how to create one using the Plex Web app and the Plex API.