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Common Use Cases

Here are some popular playlist and collection types you can create:

TV Shows & Movies

Continue Watching

  • Next Unwatched = True
  • Shows next episodes to watch for each series

Family Continue Watching (Multi-User)

  • Next Unwatched = True (no user selected - uses each playlist user's data)
  • Users: Select multiple family members
  • Each family member gets their own personalized "Continue Watching" playlist showing their next unwatched episodes
  • Auto-refreshes when any family member watches an episode

Family Movie Night

  • Next Unwatched = True AND Parental Rating = "PG" or "G"

Unwatched Action Movies

  • Playback Status = Unplayed AND Genre contains "Action"

Portrait Videos for Phones

  • Media Types: Movie, Episode, Music Video, or Video
  • Aspect Ratio less than 1:1
  • Matches every portrait display ratio, including 9:16 and uncommon phone-specific ratios

To target particular formats instead, use Aspect Ratio is in with values such as 9:16 and 4:5. Aspect ratios are entered as width:height.

Continue Watching (In Progress)

  • Playback Status = In Progress
  • Shows all movies and episodes that have been started but not finished
  • Perfect for picking up where you left off

Recent Additions

  • Date Created newer than "2 weeks"

Holiday Classics

  • Tags contain "Christmas" AND Production Year before "2000"

Complete Franchise Collection

  • Collection name contains "Movie Franchise" (includes all movies in the franchise)
  • Note: This fetches the media items from within the collection. To include collection objects themselves, use the Collection media type instead — see the next example

Meta-Collection (Collection of Collections)

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Types: Collection
  • Name is in "Marvel;DC;Star Wars"
  • Creates a single collection that organizes multiple collections together (e.g., a "Superhero Universes" collection containing your Marvel, DC, and other superhero collections)
  • Note: The Collection media type is only available for smart collections — Jellyfin playlists can only contain media items
  • Important: The smart collection will never include itself in the results, even if its name matches the rule. So you can safely name your meta-collection "Superhero Universes" and use rules that match "Marvel" without worrying about it including itself

Filtered Meta-Collection (Marvel Collections Only)

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Types: Collection, with "Match collections/playlists by the items inside them" left off
  • Name contains "Collection" AND Studios contains "Marvel"
  • With the toggle off, rules match the collections' own metadata — name, genres, studios, production year, parental rating. Jellyfin aggregates studios and genres from a collection's items, and SmartLists does the same for its own smart collections
  • Note: For item-level fields like actors, playback status or resolution, turn the toggle on — see the next example

Collections Containing a Pre-1990 Arnold Movie

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Types: Collection, with "Match collections/playlists by the items inside them" turned on
  • Actors contains "Arnold Schwarzenegger" AND Production Year less than 1990
  • With the toggle on, rules are checked against the movies inside each collection: a collection is included when at least one of its items passes all rules in a rule group — here, at least one pre-1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie
  • A collection holding a 2015 Arnold movie and a 1985 movie without him does not match — a single item must satisfy the whole rule group
  • Tip: Add Movie to the media types to also include the matching movies themselves alongside the collections

Collections of Your Best Action Movies

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Types: Movie, with "Group results into collections" turned on
  • Genres contains "Action" AND Community Rating greater than 8
  • The rules still match movies, but every matched movie is replaced by the collections it belongs to — the result is a collection of every collection holding a highly-rated action movie
  • Duplicates collapse, so ten matching movies from the same franchise produce that one collection rather than ten entries. Movies that aren't in any collection are kept as they are
  • Note: Only direct membership counts, and grouping happens before sorting and Max Items, so the limit counts collections rather than the movies inside them
  • Tip: The two collection toggles are opposites — use Match by members to match against a collection's contents, and Group results into collections to produce collections from item matches

Combine Multiple Playlists

  • Playlist name is in "Favorites;Top Rated;Recent Additions"
  • List Type: Playlist
  • Note: For playlists, this fetches all media items from within the specified playlists and combines them into a single "super playlist"
  • Creates a playlist that merges content from multiple existing playlists
  • Perfect for creating aggregated playlists like "Best of All Time" that combines your various curated playlists
  • Important: Only playlists you own or that are marked as public are accessible. The smart playlist will never include itself in the results.

Playlist Organization Collection

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Types: Playlist
  • Name contains "workout"
  • Creates a collection that organizes your playlists by category (e.g., a "Workout Playlists" collection containing all your workout-related playlists)
  • Useful for managing large numbers of playlists by grouping them into categories
  • Important: The smart collection will never include itself, and only playlists you own or that are public are accessible

Unplayed Sitcom Episodes

  • Tags contains "Sitcom" (with parent tags enabled, so a tag on the season or series applies to its episodes) AND Playback Status = Unplayed

Currently Airing Series Collection

  • Media Types: Series
  • Series Status = Continuing
  • List Type: Collection
  • Creates a collection of all TV series that are currently airing new episodes

Ended Series to Binge

  • Media Types: Series
  • Series Status = Ended AND Community Rating greater than 7
  • List Type: Collection
  • Curate a collection of completed, highly-rated series perfect for binge-watching

TV Channel Playlist (Round Robin)

Create a playlist that cycles through episodes from multiple shows, like a TV channel:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Series Name

Result: Episodes interleave across shows — Show A Ep1, Show B Ep1, Show C Ep1, Show A Ep2, Show B Ep2, etc. When a show runs out of episodes, it's skipped and the remaining shows continue.

Note

Use Playback Status = Unplayed (not Next Unwatched = Yes) to get all unwatched episodes. Next Unwatched only returns 1 episode per series.

Shuffled TV Channel (Random Round Robin)

Like the TV Channel playlist above, but the show order changes on each refresh:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Random Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Series Name

Result: Same interleaving as Round Robin, but which show appears first is randomized each time. One refresh might start with Show C, the next with Show A.

Fully Random TV Channel (Shuffled Round Robin)

Like the Shuffled TV Channel above, but the episodes within each show are shuffled too:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Shuffled Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Series Name

Result: Shuffled Round Robin over shows A, B, C might produce: Show A S02E03, Show C S01E01, Show B S03E02, Show A S01E01, Show C S02E04, Show B S01E05, etc. Both the show rotation and the episode order within each show are random — a new arrangement on every refresh.

Continue-Where-You-Left-Off TV Channel (Least Recently Watched Round Robin)

Like the TV Channel playlist above, but the show rotation follows your watch history instead of alphabetical order:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Least Recently Watched Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Series Name
  • Auto Refresh: On All Changes

Result: Shows you have never watched come first, and the show you watched most recently goes to the back of the rotation. Watch an episode of Show A, and on the next refresh Show A moves to the end while the other shows shift forward — the rotation "continues where you left off".

Franchise TV Channel (crossovers in air-date order)

Have franchise collections like NCIS or One Chicago where crossover episodes span several shows? Group the rotation by collection and play each franchise in airing order:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Least Recently Watched Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Collection, Order Within Group: Air Date
  • Auto Refresh: On All Changes

Result: Each collection becomes one slot in the rotation and plays chronologically across its shows — crossovers stay in order, and a spinoff only starts appearing once the timeline reaches its premiere. Episodes from different shows that aired within the Air Window (default 3 days) play back-to-back, so a crossover night comes as one run instead of being spread across rotation cycles. Shows not in any collection rotate as themselves. Watch anything in a franchise and the whole franchise moves to the back of the rotation — unless you stopped mid-way through a crossover block, in which case the collection stays at the front until you finish it.

TV Channel with Commercials (Bumpers)

Take any of the TV Channel playlists above and weave "commercial break" clips between the episodes:

  • Media Types: Episode
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Sort by: Shuffled Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Series Name
  • Bumpers: Bumper media type Video (home videos), rule Name contains "bumper", Bumper order Random, Every 1 items

Result: A random episode from a random show, then a bumper clip, then the next episode, and so on. With 4 bumper clips and dozens of episodes, the bumpers repeat in rotation — just like real station idents. See Bumpers for details.

Music Album Sampler (Round Robin)

Create a playlist that samples tracks from different albums:

  • Media Types: Audio
  • Genre contains "Rock"
  • Sort by: Round Robin (Interleave), Group By: Album Name
  • Max Items: 50

Result: Track 1 from Album A, Track 1 from Album B, Track 2 from Album A, Track 2 from Album B, etc.

Oscar-Nominated Movies

  • External List = https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2025/1/
  • All movies nominated at the 2025 Academy Awards

Oscar Best Picture Nominees

  • External List = https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2025/1/#oscar_best_motion_picture_of_the_year
  • Only movies nominated in the Best Picture category

Unwatched Award Nominees

  • External List = https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2024/1/ AND Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Combine an awards event list with other filters to find unwatched nominees in your library

Balanced Mix with Per-Group Limits

These examples use the Max Items for this rule group feature to create perfectly balanced playlists:

Movie Trailer & Episode Mix

Create a playlist with exactly 50% trailers and 50% episodes:

  • Include Extras: Enabled
  • Media Types: Video, Episode
  • Rule group 1:
    • Extra Type = Trailer
    • Max Items for this rule group: 50
  • Rule group 2:
    • Media Type = Episode
    • Max Items for this rule group: 50
  • Sort by: Random
  • Result: 50 random trailers mixed with 50 random episodes (100 items total)

Multi-Genre Top Hits

Get the top-rated content from different genres equally:

  • Rule group 1:
    • Genre is in "Action;Thriller"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 20
  • Rule group 2:
    • Genre is in "Comedy;Romance"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 20
  • Rule group 3:
    • Genre is in "Sci-Fi;Fantasy"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 20
  • Sort by: Community Rating (descending)
  • Result: Top 20 highest-rated items from each genre group (60 items total)

Balanced Continue Watching

Mix next episodes from different show types:

  • Rule group 1:
    • Next Unwatched = True
    • Genre contains "Drama"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 5
  • Rule group 2:
    • Next Unwatched = True
    • Genre contains "Comedy"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 5
  • Rule group 3:
    • Next Unwatched = True
    • Genre contains "Documentary"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 3
  • Result: Your next 5 drama episodes, 5 comedy episodes, and 3 documentaries to watch

Mixed Era Playlist

Create a time-traveling playlist with content from different decades:

  • Rule group 1:
    • Production Year between 1980-1989
    • Max Items for this rule group: 15
  • Rule group 2:
    • Production Year between 1990-1999
    • Max Items for this rule group: 15
  • Rule group 3:
    • Production Year between 2000-2009
    • Max Items for this rule group: 15
  • Rule group 4:
    • Production Year after 2010
    • Max Items for this rule group: 15
  • Sort by: Random
  • Result: 15 items from each decade, shuffled together

Genre-Grouped Movie Night

Create distinct sections for different genres in one playlist:

  • Rule group 1:
    • Genre contains "Action"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 10
  • Rule group 2:
    • Genre contains "Comedy"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 10
  • Rule group 3:
    • Genre contains "Horror"
    • Max Items for this rule group: 10
  • Sort by: Rule Group Order (primary), Community Rating descending (secondary)
  • Result: 10 top-rated action movies, then 10 top-rated comedies, then 10 top-rated horror movies - all in separate sections

Music

Album Collection by Genre

  • Genre contains "Rock"
  • Media Type: Album (Music)
  • List Type: Collection
  • Creates a collection of all rock albums in your library
  • Albums can only be added to Collections, not Playlists

Workout Mix

  • Genre contains "Electronic" OR "Rock" AND Max Playtime 45 minutes

Recently Added Albums (Tracks in Order)

  • Date Created newer than "3 weeks"
  • Media Type: Audio
  • Sort by: Date Created descending (primary), Track Number ascending (secondary)
  • Most recently added albums appear first, with tracks in proper album order within each day
  • The Date Created sort uses day-level precision when combined with a secondary sort, so all tracks added on the same day are grouped and the Track Number sort keeps them in the correct order

Discover New Music

  • Play Count = 0 AND Date Created newer than "1 month"

Top Rated Favorites

  • Is Favorite = True AND Community Rating greater than 8

Rediscover Music

  • Last Played older than 6 months

Family Favorites Playlist (Multi-User)

  • Is Favorite = True (no user selected - uses each playlist user's data)
  • Users: Select multiple family members (e.g., "Mom", "Dad", "Alice", "Bob")
  • Each family member gets their own personalized playlist showing their favorites
  • Auto-refreshes when any family member marks/unmarks items as favorites

Home Videos & Photos

Recent Family Memories

  • Date Created newer than "3 months" (both videos and photos)

Vacation Videos Only

  • Tags contain "Vacation" (select Home Videos media type)

Photo Slideshow

  • Production Year = 2024 (select Home Photos media type)

Birthday Memories

  • File Name contains "birthday" OR Tags contain "Birthday"

Collections

Collections are great for organizing related content that you want to browse together:

Action Movie Collection

  • Genre contains "Action"
  • Media Type: Movie
  • List Type: Collection
  • Creates a collection that groups all action movies together for easy browsing

Solo Studio Collection

  • Studios equals "A24"
  • Media Type: Movie
  • Creates a collection of movies produced exclusively by A24 (excludes co-productions with other studios)
  • Use contains instead if you want to include co-productions

Holiday Collection

  • Tags contain "Christmas" OR "Holiday"
  • List Type: Collection
  • Groups all holiday-themed content (movies, TV shows, music) into one collection

Director's Collection

  • People contains "Christopher Nolan" (Director role)
  • List Type: Collection
  • Creates a collection of all movies by a specific director

Library-Specific Playlist

  • Library Name equals "4K Movies"
  • Playback Status = Unplayed
  • Creates a playlist of only unwatched content from your "4K Movies" library
  • Useful when you have multiple libraries of the same type (e.g., "Movies" and "4K Movies")

Exclude Library from Playlist

  • Library Name not equals "Kids Movies"
  • Genre contains "Animation"
  • Creates a playlist of animated content, but excludes anything from your "Kids Movies" library

Everything from a Tagged Library

  • Tags contains "kids-safe" with Yes - Also check parent tags enabled
  • Media Type: Movie
  • Tag the library itself and every movie inside it matches - no need to tag the movies one by one
  • Works the same way for a tag on a plain folder inside the library, or on a season or series for episodes
  • See Parent metadata options for the full list of what counts as a parent

Live TV Channel Group

  • List Type: Collection
  • Media Type: Live TV Channel
  • Name contains "Sport" OR Name contains "ESPN"
  • Groups matching channels from your Live TV tuners into one collection, which Jellyfin's own Live TV view can't do
  • Channels carry little metadata, so Name, Tags and Is Favorite are the useful rules; tag channels in Jellyfin's metadata editor to group them by anything else
  • Note: Collections only (Jellyfin playlists cannot hold channels) and requires Jellyfin 12.0 or newer

Operator Examples

Using "Is In" for Multiple Values

Instead of creating multiple OR rule groups, use semicolons to match multiple values in one rule:

Before (verbose): 

Rule Group 1: Genre contains "Action", Playback Status = Unplayed
Rule Group 2: Genre contains "Comedy", Playback Status = Unplayed
Rule Group 3: Genre contains "Drama", Playback Status = Unplayed

After (simplified): 

Rule Group 1: Genre is in "Action;Comedy;Drama", Playback Status = Unplayed

Both produce the same result, but the second is simpler to maintain.

Filtering by Weekday

Use the weekday operator to filter by day of week:

  • Friday Premieres: Release Date weekday Friday
  • Recent Monday Releases: Release Date weekday Monday AND Release Date newer than 6 months
  • Weekend Additions: Date Added to Library weekday Saturday OR Date Added to Library weekday Sunday

Regex Pattern Examples

Use matches regex with .NET syntax for advanced matching:

Goal Pattern Matches
Case-insensitive (?i)swe "swe", "Swe", "SWE"
Multiple options (?i)(eng\|en) "eng", "EN", "en"
Starts with ^Action "Action Movie", "Action Hero"
Ends with Movie$ "Action Movie", "Comedy Movie"
Whole word \bAction\b "Action" but not "ActionMovie"

Finding original French films:

  • Audio Languages matches regex (?i)fra? with "Must be default language" enabled
  • Matches "fr" or "fra" as default audio, excluding English films with French dubs