Completed Public and private playlists

[harrv 88]

It appears that any playlist that any user creates is public--all other users can see it.

 

I can appreciate the benefit of a public playlist. I could create a playlist called "Harv's Favorite Horror Films" for example, in case other users are interested in checking out what I like.

 

However, the way most of my users are using playlists is to keep track of things they want to watch in the future. They are typically things that the user has not watched yet, so it's not meant as a recommendation to others, just as a way of them personally keeping track of what they want to watch. Having that kind of playlist be public is of questionable benefit to other users.

 

Additionally, it is not clear when you create a playlist that other users will be able to see it. That has the potential to cause some embarrassment. He hasn't created one yet, but I wouldn't want to see my nephew's "movies to fap to" playlist, for example.

 

If I could make a suggestion, I would suggest associating each playlist with the user who created it, and giving that user the ability to make the playlist private or public. For example, the following two checkboxes could be shown when creating or editing a playlist:

Allow other users to see this playlist
Allow other users to edit this playlist

Initially, both checkboxes would be unchecked. Since another user cannot edit a playlist they cannot see, the second would be allowed to be checked only if the first were also checked. (You could grey it out to make that clear.)

 

Depending on your UI preference, it could also be a drop-down menu.

Playlist visibility: (Only me | all users can view | all users can view and edit)

 

Thanks for considering this.

Edited July 17, 2018 by harrv

[Luke 38157]

Hi, yes i agree we need to revamp this in regards to playlists. Thanks.

[ddurdle 75]

I'm wondering about Collections vs Playlists....

 

Collections are public groups of videos

Playlists are private(?) grouping of videos to play

 

The features seem very closely aligned, albeit I'm probably drastically exaggerating here.  But is playlists essentially private collections?   Life for the example the OP had, if he wanted to share his "Harv's Favorite Horror Films" with other users, he could create it as a collection, and if he did not, he could create it as a playlist?  So albeit all his request around a read-only public list is to be incorporated, 2 out of the 3 conditions are already satisfied today?  correct me if wrong....

[ebr 15245]

Although you can define your own custom collections if you wish, they were designed to be truly public groupings - meaning they are defined at the metadata provider level.  e.g. Dreamworks Collection or Mission Impossible Collection.

 

In my mind, this is drastically different from a playlist...

[cuzz1369 7]

Hi, yes i agree we need to revamp this in regards to playlists. Thanks.

Is this fixed in 4.0? I only see one note about playlists in the release notes

 

• Fix collection and playlist separation per library

[Luke 38157]

Is what exactly fixed in 4.0? thanks.

[cuzz1369 7]

Is what exactly fixed in 4.0? thanks.

A user makes a playlist and all other users can view and delete it.

[Luke 38157]

This hasn't changed yet. We need to revamp playlist permissions and sharing in a future update.

 

What is fixed though is that users will only be able to see playlists that have content in the libraries they have access to.

[cuzz1369 7]

This hasn't changed yet. We need to revamp playlist permissions and sharing in a future update.

 

That's unfortunate. Thanks for the prompt reply.

[steelersfan7234 1]

Hello,

 

I find issues with this as far back as 2017. Almost three years, and we still dont have a way to make playlists and collections private? It seems odd that anyone on the server would be allowed to just delete any playlist or collection? Is this still in the works?

Edited September 21, 2019 by steelersfan7234

[Luke 38157]

Apologies. We're going as fast as we can. Hopefully soon.

[steelersfan 6]

Hi Luke,

I appreciate your honest reply. Generally speaking is this something you are trying to do this year, next year? Is this something still undecided for a time frame?

 

thanks!

[crumb4life 0]

Apologies. We're going as fast as we can. Hopefully soon.

 

I have to be honest seeing people ask for this since 2017 and still no progress. Is it just not a priority? Cause this is something keeping me from a full move from Plex.

[computerprep 146]

While they're working on this feature, the workaround is to attach a custom tag to the metadata of a playlist, then restrict all other users from accessing that tag in the parental controls.

Not the easiest, but it makes it functional for now. The way I do this is I attach use the usernames as the tags. So my each user's parental controls block a list of tags including all other usernames.

 

Which brings me to a problem with the current android app... @@Luke, it doesn't allow us to edit the metadata of actual playlists. Web UI seems to allow that, but the option is missing from the long-press menu and the "...More" menu inside the playlist.

[Luke 38157]

Thanks for the info.

[crumb4life 0]

While they're working on this feature, the workaround is to attach a custom tag to the metadata of a playlist, then restrict all other users from accessing that tag in the parental controls.

 

Not the easiest, but it makes it functional for now. The way I do this is I attach use the usernames as the tags. So my each user's parental controls block a list of tags including all other usernames.

 

Which brings me to a problem with the current android app... @@Luke, it doesn't allow us to edit the metadata of actual playlists. Web UI seems to allow that, but the option is missing from the long-press menu and the "...More" menu inside the playlist.

 

Not the most ideal but so far the best solution I have seen thus far. Thank You @computerprep

[Stokkes 9]

Watching this too as I'm looking for a way to have private playlists. Thanks

[horstepipe 361]

While they're working on this feature, the workaround is to attach a custom tag to the metadata of a playlist, then restrict all other users from accessing that tag in the parental controls.

 

Not the easiest, but it makes it functional for now. The way I do this is I attach use the usernames as the tags. So my each user's parental controls block a list of tags including all other usernames.

 

So with this approach...won't the users be able to see the movies within the playlist at all? Or won't they only see the playlist (but the movies keep existing in their libraries)?

Edited December 4, 2019 by horstepipe

[computerprep 146]

So with this approach...won't the users be able to see the movies within the playlist at all? Or won't they only see the playlist (but the movies keep existing in their libraries)?

Other users can still see whatever media exists inside the playlist (unless parental controls or library access denies them that). They just won't be able to see that actual playlist.

 

Another new feature that affects this is the inclusion of "playlist" as an entry in user library access. You can disable all playlists to individual users that way. Would be easy to forget to turn on playlist access for a user and wonder why they can't see any of them regardless of parental control tags.

[horstepipe 361]

+1 for this.

Toggling read/write permissions for each user and playlist would be really nice. Each user could have his/her own movie recommendation list with that.

[siteripper2 0]

+1 really needed!

[computerprep 146]

Toggling read/write permissions for each user and playlist would be really nice.

To add to this, toggles should default to private so a playlist is "owned" by the user who created it by default.

 

And now that I'm thinking about implementation, the proposed user-list for a particular playlist would need two checkboxes per user, 1 for read and 1 for write permission.

Edited December 5, 2019 by computerprep

[Batista_spain 0]

2020 and we still do not have this requested feature. Do we have any new information?

[Luke 38157]

2020 and we still do not have this requested feature. Do we have any new information?

Not yet, sorry.

[Lefty3382 0]

+1 for this.

I recently had a user delete someone else's playlist because she didn't realize she could see those created by others.  She also didn't realize everyone could see her playlists.  She also can't update the cover art for her playlists, which she very much wants to do.