Smart Playlists

Generator playlists (also called smart or filter playlists) allow you to create derivative playlists based on the content of another playlist. This is the main way of creating a filtered view of a playlist.

Creating Preset Generator Playlists

The quickest way to create a generated playlist is using a preset:

1. Right click a playlist tab
2. Select “Generate…”
3. Choose a preset from the menu

Tip

Generated playlists are also created automatically when you use Global search or Quick find (via Shift + Enter)

Regenerating Playlists

Once a generated playlist has been created, you can reload it:

1. Right click the playlist tab
2. Select “Regenerate”

This updates the playlist based on any changes to the source playlist.

Auto-Regenerate

By default, you need to manually regenerate playlists. To enable automatic updates:

Globally:

• Go to MENU > Settings…
• Enable “Auto regenerate playlists”

Per Playlist:

• Edit the generator and add the code auto

Manual Generator Creation

You can create custom generator playlists with specific combinations of searches, filters, and sorters:

1. Right click a playlist tab
2. Select “Misc…” > “Edit generator…”
3. Enter generator codes

Recommended Workflow

The general idea is to import your music library to a single source playlist, then you can create and delete derivative playlists as needed.

Code Format

There are 4 types of codes: Selectors, Searchers, Filters and Sorters. Only one search code is required at minimum.

The order is important. Typically you:

1. Select any particular playlists to restrict search scope to (optional)
2. Perform a search or simply add all tracks using the a code
3. Add any filters or sorters (optional)

For example, if you wanted a playlist of all your loved tracks you could use: a l. If you wanted all loved tracks from only a specific playlist, you could use: s"MyPlaylist" a l

If you wanted all loved tracks from a specific artist, you could use: a"Artistname" l

Select source playlists

Function	Code example	Notes
Add playlist to selection	s"Name of Playlist"	If no selection is made, all playlists will be selected
Clear selection	clr	Selects all playlists as per above rule
Select current playlist	self	This is a special code that makes the selection the playlist itself. Useful when combined with auto and any sorters to re-sort tracks on import. Using any filter codes with this will be destructive.

Search from selected playlists

Note

Entries in Bold are additional codes not shown in the in-app legend.

Function	Code example	Notes
Search artist	a"Artist Name"	This is a search term, so it can be fuzzy like: a"arti"
Search genre	g"Rock"	You can combine multiple of these like g"k-pop" g"j-pop"
Find in all	f"artist"	This produces the same results as the find box. Includes searching the filename (can be a partial stem like p"ingles/cold", a folder name, or a full folder path) and comment, but not lyrics or genre.
Find string in all	fs"artist"	Same as above but for matching an exact sequence (Useful for searches where spaces are important)
Add by file type	ext"flac"	You could also do f".flac" which will probably give you what you want since that includes searching the filename, but you would need this function to include; say; your Airsonic collection by doing ext"sub"
Add all tracks from selection	a	You will need this if you didn’t perform any of the above searches

Filters

Function	Code example	Notes
Max number of tracks	n123	In this case, limits playlist to 123 tracks
Year greater than	y>2015	This can also be inclusive by using y>=2016
Year less than	y<2016	This can also be inclusive by using y<=2016
Year equals	y=2016	This would be the equivient of doing y>2015 y<2017
Playcount greater than	pc>5
Playcount less then	pc<10	For example, combining this and the above like pc>5 pc<10 will filter the playlist to only include tracks with playcounts of 6 to 9
Playtime greater than	pt>5
Playtime less then	pt<10
Duration less than	d<30	In seconds. In this case, playlist will only include tracks less than 30 seconds
Duration greater than	d>300	In seconds. In this case, playlist will only include tracks greater then 5 minutes
Rating greater than	rat>2	In this case, includes tracks with more than 2 stars
Rating less than	rat<4.5	In this case, includes tracks with less than 4.5 stars
Rating equals	rat=5	In this case, includes tracks with exactly 5 stars
Loved tracks	l
Has lyrics	ly
Has cue sheet	cue	Only keeps tracks that are part of a larger file
Today’s day of the year	today	Includes release dates that match today’s month and day. Tracks will need to have full date in date field
Comment match	com"bandcamp"	The f"" code already includes searching the comment, but you can use this code to only search the comment. (Also this must be an exact match of a string segment and isn’t fuzzy like f"text")
Find and keep	ff"text"	Same as f"text" but only for tracks already included, discarding non-matches.
Find and exclude	fx"text"	Same as ff"text" but removes matching tracks.
Exclude playlist	px"playlistname"	Exclude tracks that appear in a particular playlist. (Added in v7.2.0)

Sorters

Function	Code example	Notes
Shuffle tracks	st
Shuffle albums	sf
Year Oldest to Latest	y>
Year Latest to Oldest	y<
Playtime highest	pt>
Playtime lowest	pt<
Duration longest	d>
Duration shortest	d<
Most played albums	pa>
Least played albums	pa<
Reversed tracks	rv
Reversed albums	rva
Highest track ratings	rat>	If you would like to exclude tracks that don’t have a rating, use rat rat>
Lowest track ratings	rat<	If you would like to exclude tracks that don’t have a rating, use rat rat<
Highest album ratings	rata>
Recently modified files	m>	This is read from the modification date of the file at the time it was imported. Won’t work with network tracks.
Oldest modified files	m<
Track numbers per album	tn
Year per artist	ypa	Use this if you want discographies in order for each artist. (Artists albums must already be grouped together in the playlist).
Sort tracks by filepath	path	This may not be the same order as was originally imported
Column sort	"bitrate">	Sort by any column. Name must be the exact title of a column as shown in the columns view. Can also use < to sort in reverse

Special

Function	Code	Notes
Automatically update	auto

Examples

Function	Code String
Search for Coldplay from playlist Default and show tracks that have a playcount of less than 2	s"Default" a"Coldplay" pc<2
Shuffle albums from every playlist	a sf
Take 10 random tracks from the playlist Default	s"Default" a st n10
Show loved tracks of artists Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers in order of playcount from playlists Default and Downloads. Tip: You can shorten the names and it will (probably) still return what you want.	s"De" s"Do" a"Col" a"Red H" pt> l

Note

If you rename a targeted playlist, you will need to update any strings manually.

Note

If multiple playlists have the same name, just the first one will be selected.

Important

Its best to keep your source playlists as the firstmost playlists, appearing before any generator playlists. So if you have a main library playlist, keep it as the first playlist.