Is there anywhere to create a playlist containing multiple TV Series?

[smitbret 4]

Simple, I would like to create a playlist for different TV Series that I would like to watch.  However, when I add a TV Series, Emby breaks the entire series down and I just get a list of all of the individual episodes.  For a short TV series of 10 or 20 episodes that's not a problem but if I wanted to add Seinfeld or something with 8-10 seasons of 25 episodes then the list gets awfully long.

It seems like it should be something that is simple and automatic so maybe I am just being dense here but if anyone can point me in the right direction it would be awesome.

Thanks

[GrimReaper 4739]

No, as playlist is a list of items - can't add Series (or Season) since they're collections of items, you're adding items that consist them. You can try using Collection instead in your scenario. 

[ebr 16169]

Hi.  Isn't the series itself the playlist you are wanting to create then?

[smitbret 4]

8 minutes ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Isn't the series itself the playlist you are wanting to create then?

No.  A lot of times I think to myself "Gee, that's a series I would like to watch" but I am currently in the middle of watching something else for a few weeks and so it would be nice to create a list of a handful to TV Series that I would consider to be "Up Next".  I can add the series but by the time I had 4 or 5, I have hundreds of episodes to scroll through.

It would just be nice to see each individual series like you get in the parent menu for TV.

[roaku 842]

The ultimate would being able to define a handful of 'currently watching' shows in a collection/playlist and have Emby randomly select the next unwatched episode from among the shows.

Just click the play button on the collection/playlist and let it run.

[ebr 16169]

36 minutes ago, smitbret said:

it would be nice to create a list of a handful to TV Series that I would consider to be "Up Next"

You could use Favorites or put them in a collection...

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

16 minutes ago, roaku said:

The ultimate would being able to define a handful of 'currently watching' shows in a collection/playlist and have Emby randomly select the next unwatched episode from among the shows.

Just click the play button on the collection/playlist and let it run.

Is that not what the "continue watching" row is for? Or, if you don't use "Next up legacy" the next up row?

I know a lot of people play shows from the library itself but I find "Next up/continue watching" to be vastly superior for watching. it works for binge watching just fine except after you start watching an episode that was not at the first position the show moves to the first position.

I just do not see any advantage of a playlist for a single TV show. But the way I view is also not "standard" and I want much to be different or optional so I believe this request should be available unless the programming is excessively complex.

[roaku 842]

1 minute ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Is that not what the "continue watching" row is for? Or, if you don't use "Next up legacy" the next up row?

I know a lot of people play shows from the library itself but I find "Next up/continue watching" to be vastly superior for watching. it works for binge watching just fine except after you start watching an episode that was not at the first position the show moves to the first position.

I just do not see any advantage of a playlist for a single TV show. But the way I view is also not "standard" and I want much to be different or optional so I believe this request should be available unless the programming is excessively complex.

Speaking for myself, Continue Watching covers everything you're watching.

This topic is about quickly selecting something to watch from a subset of available shows, maybe based on available time, mood, etc. Anything really.

In my case, I have a collection that contains classic sitcoms from multiple decades and one that contains hour long classics (Columbo, Macgyver, Adventures of Brisco County Jr, Stargate SG1, etc).

These are shows I am watching/rewatching long term and are separate in my mind from recordings and other things that are included in Continue Watching. I watch those 'other things' more frequently, so the long term rewatches are miles back in CW anyway and I end up forgetting about them for longer stretches of time than I would like.

[roaku 842]

I just started looking at tags for this now.

It gets pretty close to what I (and hopefully the OP) wants.

It adds at the show, not episode level and has better sorting options than collections.

It's even got the random play option, except the selection mechanism doesn't recognize/respect watch progress within a show.

[smitbret 4]

18 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Is that not what the "continue watching" row is for? Or, if you don't use "Next up legacy" the next up row?

I know a lot of people play shows from the library itself but I find "Next up/continue watching" to be vastly superior for watching. it works for binge watching just fine except after you start watching an episode that was not at the first position the show moves to the first position.

I just do not see any advantage of a playlist for a single TV show. But the way I view is also not "standard" and I want much to be different or optional so I believe this request should be available unless the programming is excessively complex.

It's more to create a "Hot List" so that when I finish watching a series I can go back and review a list of shows that I thought I might want to watch next.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

11 minutes ago, smitbret said:

It's more to create a "Hot List" so that when I finish watching a series I can go back and review a list of shows that I thought I might want to watch next.

If you play just a little of a show you will find it in the "Continue watching" list so you can play (using ff to make it fast) about 3 minutes and find it for all time in continue watching.

That is what I do to que up shows for future watching. Then, when I decide to watch it I press play on the continue watching entry as soon as playback starts I press rw a couple or four times and then hit play when to gets to the beginning.

Emby has lots of way to accomplish the same thing and that is good, I think.

BTW: @roakuhas a good point about using collections. It works and, for a while when Emby screwed up continue watching, that is exactly what I used to store "interesting" TV shows.

 

[smitbret 4]

Played around with some of the ideas here and <Favorites> seems to be the way to go.  Maybe I'm a little OCD because it bothers me that it's called "Favorites" but it does what I want.

Collections and Tags would be nice if there was a way to break it out of everything else but by the time they get mixed in with all of the movie collections or mixed in with all of the other tags.......

[CRiXiD 25]

Being able to add a series or season to a playlist would be fantastic. I manage my movie watchlist in Trakt and then sync that to Emby which works flawlessly. With shows however I don't want every episode appearing in my Emby playlist, so I simply can't sync them. I can use favourites, but that's not my watchlist... that's my favourites list. 

[visproduction 315]

Go to the first episode of the season for a TV show and add only this episode to a Playlist.  The playlist will only show this episode.  If you have your options set to play through to the next epsiode, then you can easily start watching from the playlist and continue watching from the home page the next time you login.  Does this fix what you are trying to do?  I think you were only trying to add the TV-series to a playlist and that results in adding all the episodes.

Hope this helps.

[rbjtech 5284]

6 hours ago, visproduction said:

Go to the first episode of the season for a TV show and add only this episode to a Playlist.  The playlist will only show this episode.  If you have your options set to play through to the next epsiode, then you can easily start watching from the playlist and continue watching from the home page the next time you login.  Does this fix what you are trying to do?  I think you were only trying to add the TV-series to a playlist and that results in adding all the episodes.

Hope this helps.

Yep.  Embys view is the playlist is fit for purpose for TV series but a lot of views here that it is not.  People are using the playlist as a watchlist simply because there is nothing better in the software.  Thus they clearly don't want all the episodes listed, just the 'show' as a reminder to start watching it.

Yes adding ep1 (of whatever season) works but its a fudge as most people will rightly think that if they add a show to a playlist,  it will add the show, not potentially 100's of episodes... 

[ebr 16169]

2 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Embys view is the playlist is fit for purpose for TV series

Only if what you want is an actual playlist.  We've never said it is fit for use as a "to watch" list of TV series.  That function does not currently exist and we don't believe making playlist operate incorrectly for their purpose is a proper solution to that.

[Tremas 197]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Only if what you want is an actual playlist.  We've never said it is fit for use as a "to watch" list of TV series.  That function does not currently exist and we don't believe making playlist operate incorrectly for their purpose is a proper solution to that.

On 9/20/2023 at 5:12 PM, Tremas said:

Bumping this again. A proper Watchlist/Watch Later/My Stuff feature that is maintained for each user and appears on the Home Screen is sorely needed (and has been for years). It is the main view I go to first in every other TV application... and every other application I can think of has this feature (and has for years).

With playlists assigned to users in the current beta, I'm hoping this isn't far away. But for heaven's sake, this really needs to get done.

 

[IcedTea123 3]

I totally agree that this is needed. Some things from Plex should be lifted, if it benefits the userbase.

What I have been doing is Making a collection, for example "Crime", and adding various tv shows to it. Then I favorite that collection, and use it as a Watchlist.

 

Seems to work so far.

[howllor 26]

Why not simply make a collection called "Watchlist"?

[IcedTea123 3]

Because most people have different interests, and so having just one is sub-optimal?

Many couples share an installation, as well?

This is a VERY common thing that people do, so I would think Emby would want to offer it, rather than try to force usage their way.

[howllor 26]

Oh I wasn't criticising you, I literally just want to know why you first make a collection and then add it to your favourites? But I guess it makes sense when considering that collections are for the whole server, not just for one user, I had not thought of that.

Edited September 23, 2025 by howllor

[IcedTea123 3]

Oh, I didn't think you were. Just sometimes surprised that Emby doesn't have some work-a-like features to help people switch over.

[Luke 42077]

Being able to pin a playlist of collection to the homescreen and turn it into a section is something we plan to do.

[IcedTea123 3]

That's cool. I really appreciate the reply.

 

I would love to be able to get rid of all the autogenerated collections. I've got the generation turned off, but getting rid of the ones I have would be awesome. I don't like having something like that that I can't seem to control.

I am slowly getting used to Emby, and it's got some huge advantages over Plex, most of all speed of the clients.

Just some bits here and there that need additions, and it would zoom right past Plex.

I say this because the UI Plex change made me switch over, fully.

[Luke 42077]

Quote

I would love to be able to get rid of all the autogenerated collections. I've got the generation turned off, but getting rid of the ones I have would be awesome.

You should be able to delete many in bulk using the multi-select tool.